by Linda Jones
Julian hesitated. Had he been lying? Perhaps she had no attributes at all. But then he cleared his throat. “You’re intelligent, I can see that well. No wonder your other tutors failed. They probably tried to treat you like a child.”
“They did,” she said, glad he admired her intelligence, but not particularly satisfied.
“And you have… a spark.”
“A spark? I do not understand.”
“You have such a wonderful vivaciousness within you. It needs to be tamed,” he added quickly. “But not erased.”
She smiled. Vivaciousness was good.
“And you are…” He stopped, as if he had choked on a word.
“I am what?” she prodded.
“Beautiful,” he confessed in a low voice. “Quite beautiful.”
Pleased with his answer, Anya worked the soapy washcloth across Julian’s back. “You have many fine attributes yourself.”
“There’s no need…” he began.
“You have a kind heart,” she interrupted. “I knew that when I first met you. Truly kind hearts are rare, and should be treasured.”
He mumbled something that might be “thank you,” but she couldn’t be sure.
“And as I said you are a marvelous teacher. The finest I have ever known.” Her hands worked deeper into the water than it had before, her washcloth covered fingers barely brushing his backside.
“I’m sure my back is clean, Anya,” Julian said testily.
“And you are beautiful,” she whispered. “Julian, the Beauty.”
“Men are not supposed to be beautiful,” he protested.
“But you are.” She was so tempted to continue her exploration beneath the water, to touch her lips against Julian’s wet neck and back, to snake her arms around his wet body and push him a little further. But enough was enough. She tossed him the washcloth and stood. “There now. Your back is wonderfully clean.”
Again he muttered something unintelligible.
“Good night,” she said sweetly.
*
Julian stood at the top of the stairs and stared at the unimpressive swirl of gold chain and the small attached ornament that sat on the palm of his hand. It was a silly idea, really. Anya had more jewels than any woman he knew, and many of them were quite elegant. Grand, even. This trinket would be nothing to a woman like Anya.
He was about to stuff the necklace in his pocket when she came up behind him, moving quiet as a cat. “Good morning,” she said sweetly. Too sweetly. That innocent tone usually meant she was up to something.
“Good morning.” He closed his hand, making a fist around the necklace.
Anya missed nothing. “What do you have in your hand?”
“Nothing,” he said, offering his arm to escort her to breakfast.
She took his arm and they descended the stairs. Good heavens, even dressed properly Anya looked like no other woman he had ever known. Wild. Free.
And not nearly as fearless as she would like everyone to believe. Her reaction to the storm proved that to him.
“Actually,” he said as they reached the foot of the stairs, “it’s not exactly nothing.” He opened his fist and displayed the plain necklace.
Anya wrapped one finger around the delicate chain and lifted it slowly. The pendant, a gold rose, swung between them. “It’s very pretty,” she said softly.
“It was my mother’s,” he explained. “My Aunt Helen gave it to me when I turned twenty. She said I might want to give it to my wife, one day.”
Anya lifted her head and looked him dead in the eye. “It is for me?”
“It’s not fancy,” Julian said quickly. “You probably won’t care to wear it.” Her tastes were much more extravagant, especially where jewelry was concerned. “But Aunt Helen said my mother always considered it a kind of good luck charm.” He dropped his eyes. “My father gave it to her soon after they married.”
“They died when you were young?” she asked softly.
“I was nine when my father died. My mother passed on a year later.”
Anya held the necklace high, so the gold rose swung between them. “Do you have many remembrances of her?”
Julian’s mouth went dry. “Only this.”
“And you give it to me?”
“I thought you might like a good luck charm of your own,” he explained. “Something to hang on to when storms come.” He wouldn’t always be here to comfort her. Like it or not, there would come a day when Anya would be on her own. Something so simple as a lucky piece was not too much to offer.
Anya held the necklace aloft, offering it to him on the end of a slender finger. Of course, she wanted nothing to do with something so simple as a hand-me-down pendant. She grinned as he took the necklace from her, then spun to present her back.
“You will put it on me?” she asked.
For some reason, Julian felt relieved that she was not returning the gift.
“Of course.” His fingers didn’t fumble much as he draped the necklace around Anya’s neck and worked the clasp. He told himself that it only made sense to give the geegaw to Anya. He reasoned that it wasn’t as if he’d ever take another wife, and besides, a lucky charm might actually bring Anya a little comfort, one of these days.
When she turned to face him again, she laid her hand over the small gold rose that sat high on her chest. “Thank you,” she said with a softening smile.
“It’s nothing, really,” he said too quickly. “I can’t very well wear it, and it simply makes sense—”
“Marido,” she interrupted. “My teacher would tell me that the proper response to ‘thank you,’ is ‘You are welcome.’ ” She licked her lips. “Thank you.”
Julian took a deep, calming breath. “You’re welcome.”
*
The arrival of Julian’s books, two days after the big storm, changed everything. Anya was so relieved to have something new to read! In the following three weeks, each afternoon after a family lunch, Julian and Anya retired to their sitting room to read. In the privacy of their shared room she shed her conventional clothing, but she always covered herself with well-placed brightly covered scarves. Julian seemed not to mind, anymore, though in those early days he did not mind because he rarely looked in her direction.
They had been married almost six weeks. He was proving to be much more steadfast than she had anticipated.
His library was wonderful. Too wonderful. Anya hardly knew where to start. She spent an entire afternoon arranging his books on the bookshelf Grandmother had moved to their sitting room for that purpose. All the medical books were placed on one shelf, the tales of travel on another. The bottom shelf was reserved for Shakespeare. So much Shakespeare!
On this warm June afternoon, Anya sat on the floor and tried to decide what to read next. Julian sat in the rocking chair in the corner, his nose buried in an anthropology book.
She felt a little guilty for trying so hard to seduce him in their first days of marriage. It had been wrong, she supposed, to try to control him by appealing to his libido. It had not worked, so she did not feel too guilty, but she did feel a little pang of regret now and then.
Her fingers skimmed over the leather spines of the books on the bottom shelf, but her eyes were on her husband. In the weeks since the storm, he had not cut his hair. Dark and thick, it fell over his ears and curled about his neck. Now and then Grandmother would suggest that he get it trimmed, and he always said he would take care of the matter. He never did. Sometimes Anya thought she saw a hint of a wild man in him, when they were walking in the garden and the wind ruffled his hair, or when he briefly—so briefly—looked at her just so and her heart skipped a beat. Her imagination was suffering from the reading of too many novels, or so the author of one of Julian’s ridiculous brochures would suggest.
To thank Julian for being so kind to her, Anya had desisted in her plan to seduce him, since he seemed to hold his chastity in such high regard. She thought he was grateful for her change in attitude, but it was d
ifficult to tell. Sometimes… sometimes she allowed herself to believe that deep down he really wanted her to seduce him.
He lifted his eyes from the book and smiled at her. “What will you choose next?” He always took such an interest in her reading material, and had forbidden her nothing.
“Much Ado About Nothing, I think,” she said.
He placed his book in his lap and gave her his full attention. “I saw a notice in the newspaper this morning. Romeo and Juliet will be performed at the Wilmington Theater next week.”
“Theater?”
“The play will be acted out by performers. Have you ever been to a performance?”
She shook her head.
“Would you like to go?”
“Yes.”
“Then we will go.”
Something terrible had happened to her, and this horrific thing had happened so gradually she had not known it was coming until it was too late. She had always found Julian attractive, and taking him to her bed in order to achieve her goals had seemed like a fine idea. But lately she felt… different. She wanted him. She did not crave just any man, and she did not want Julian in order to control him. She simply wanted him. Sometimes she actually ached for him.
She had never ached for anyone or anything. Before being given to King Sebastian, she had been trained as a lover. All the older women of the village had shared their knowledge with her. They had instructed her. How to move, how to seduce. How to touch, where to touch. From the age of fifteen, when she had been chosen, no man had been allowed to speak to her. She had been protected, guarded and cared for. When the old king stepped down from the throne and put his only son in his place, she was Sebastian’s gift from his father. A virgin who knew how to please a man. What more could a man want?
Sebastian already had a concubine, but as he and Emelda had been together for three years and produced no heir, the new king could not refuse his father’s gift. And so he came to her. As king, he was entitled to as many concubines as he desired. Even if he took a wife, he would be allowed his pleasures.
Sex was a task. A not altogether unpleasant one, but a task all the same. It had never been, not even in the later days when Sebastian so rarely came to her, an ache. Or a joy. She had never dreamed of a man taking her. Touching her. Filling her. Until now.
Julian was unlike any man she had ever known. No other man would have soothed her during the storm, no other man would have held her without expecting something more in way of thanks. She fingered the gold rose that lay against her chest. A man who did not care for her at all would not give her something so precious. His ideas about marriage were maddening, his lessons on decorum and propriety were often annoying, and still she felt something new and different growing inside her. She had been taught all aspects of physical love, but no one had ever spoken to her of the heart. She had seen this kind of love, though, in a few couples on Puerta Sirena who at times seemed to need nothing and no one else but one another. Some nights she was teased with a fleeting memory of love she could not quite grasp.
She feared she was falling in love with her husband, and that was a terrible thing. When his task here was done and he left, he would break her heart.
A man like Julian DeButy would never love the Beast of Rose Hill. No matter how much she tried, how hard she wanted to be the kind of woman he could love, she knew she wasted her time. She had read his ridiculous books and pamphlets, she knew what his notion of the ideal woman was.
According to the pamphlets Julian read, the ideal woman should be meek, pious, and not too smart. She should be content to immerse herself in domestic duties, and she should have no personal desires—sexual or otherwise. If she did allow her husband to touch her, it should be grudgingly, and only for the objective of making a child. One pamphlet had even suggested that the dutiful wife should lie in her bed and think of something more pleasant than what her foul husband was doing to her. He, of course, was being unmercifully driven by that monster lust that a man could not control but a woman must. What hogwash.
Anya was not that woman and never would be. She had said it herself, on one of their first days as man and wife: He might transform her on the outside, but inside… inside she would not change. Julian knew that better than anyone.
*
Julian insisted that she not again disturb him while he was bathing. Her more perverse nature might have compelled her to disobey, but he had blushed so prettily as he had sent her packing that she had decided to obey. For now.
An overly warm day had sent him to the bath earlier than usual. They had spent much of the afternoon in the garden, talking about the books they were reading while Julian tried his best to reform her way of walking. He had worked up quite a sweat, and said he needed a nice, cold bath.
Anya, who always knew what she wanted and how to get it, was torn. She wanted her husband in her bed, but she did not want to drag him there. She wanted him to come to her of his own volition—not because she enticed him, not because she appealed only to what his damned pamphlets referred to as his baser instincts.
She wanted him to love her, but of course that was impossible. But surely he could want her enough to make their remaining days and nights together memorable.
Anya walked into the south parlor, where Valerie sat diligently poking her needle into an uncooperative piece of linen. Grandmother had tried to interest Anya in embroidery, but after attempting the chore for a grand total of five minutes, Anya had thrown the tangled results at Peter, very nearly stabbing the man in the eye with the needle.
Valerie lifted her head and sighed. “Oh,” she said softly, “it’s you.”
In the past weeks, Anya had been remembering more and more about the first years of her life in this house. Flashes of memory she told no one about. One fact came through loud and clear: Valerie, whose father had been Anya’s father’s brother and whose mother had died when she was a baby, had been her friend. Not quite two years older than Anya, Valerie had been the leader. The two girls, and a slightly older and more annoying Seymour, had practically grown up together while their fathers had been at war, and then when the family had begun to rebuild itself.
So why did Valerie hate her so now? And she did hate. The emotion was unmistakable in her pale blue eyes.
Anya took a deep breath. “May I sit with you for a while? Julian is taking a bath.”
Valerie narrowed her pale blue eyes suspiciously. “I suppose.” She returned to her embroidery. Valerie was no more talented at the craft than Anya had been, and yet she continued to try.
Valerie was the perfect granddaughter. She was the kind of woman Grandmother wanted Anya to be. Demure, sweet, and usually silent.
“Why do you hate me?”
Valerie lifted her head and put her embroidery aside. “I do not hate you, Anya….”
“You do.” Anya cocked her head and studied her cousin carefully. Yes, Valerie was a little fat, but she was also pretty, blessed with fair hair, creamy skin without a single freckle, and very nice blue eyes. “Why?”
“I do not hate you,” Valerie repeated. “But…”
“But what?” Anya prompted.
“You’ve turned this household upside down,” the young woman said crisply, her spine straight and her nose just slightly in the air.
“I apologize. That was never my intention.”
Valerie blushed bright pink. “And your behavior has been shocking.”
“I am who I am. I cannot change who I have become to please anyone.”
Valerie sniffled a little, as if she were suddenly on the verge of tears. “And you’re not the same. I grieved for you, and then I find out you’re alive after all these years… and you’re not the girl I remember.”
“Do you remember me?”
Valerie laid her eyes squarely on Anya. Yes, there were tears sparkling there. “Of course I remember you. You were like a sister to me. I loved you.”
“You loved me?”
Valerie looked taken aback. “Of cours
e I did.” A long moment of awkward silence filled the air before Valerie continued, in an attempt to explain her confession. “We were children, of course. Not the same people we are today.”
Anya studied her cousin, a woman who had been cold and distant since her return. Of course, upon that return, Anya herself had been less than hospitable. By the time she arrived she was already missing Puerta Sirena, and it had not taken her long to realize that she did not belong. But here and now she tried to piece together the memories that had been coming to her, lately. Like jagged pieces of one of Grandmother’s puzzles, they were beginning to take shape. To fit together. To make sense.
“I do not remember much,” Anya admitted. “But Valerie, I think I loved you, too.”
Chapter 6
“Why do you have no patients?” Anya rocked once in her chair. She had placed it by the window, in the sun, and the afternoon rays warmed her bare shoulders.
Julian lifted his head from the book he was reading and raised his eyebrows as he settled his gaze on her. “I believe I have proven that I have infinite patience.”
Anya grinned. “No, silly. Patients. Sick people. You are a doctor, why do you not treat sick people?”
This was her favorite time of the day. The morning was filled with breakfast with the family followed by lessons. How to talk, how to dress, how to walk. What to say, what not to say. Julian was most especially concerned with what not to say. But after lunch, another meal taken with the family, she and Julian retired to this room, where she traded her restrictive clothing for a couple of scarves and Julian slipped off his jacket. They read. Sometimes they talked about what they read.
Julian took a moment to consider her question. “I’m more interested in research,” he said. “My grandfather was an anthropologist, and that’s where my primary interests lie. While I did go to medical school and serve an internship, I have never attempted to set up a practice of my own.”
“Why not?”
The question seemed to vex him, and he did not quickly come up with an answer.
