She’d been garbed simply enough in a starched apron and muslin dress of a shade of lilac that brought attention to her dark waist-length hair which had been pulled back at the crown of her head. She wore no jewelry or adornments save for a thin gold chain at her neck that caught the light when she turned toward him.
“How long will we have you in Gold Sky, Mr. Baptiste?”
Julian’s eyes left the glint of the gold chain to meet the eyes of the smiling woman he’d been trying very hard not to stare at. It was impolite, ill-mannered, and—well, he wasn’t a man who stared at women.
He was no stranger to beautiful women, women who donned only the finest fashions, possessed advantageous familial connections, and moved through the world with only the kind of grace a charmed life could offer.
It wasn't even that Violet was refreshingly unlike certain women who had scorned him, or even that she was like ones he found himself helpless to resist.
Violet simply was.
She spoke plainly enough but Julian warmed to her husky tone that reminded him of summer nights. Her Mexican accent, light as it was, brought to mind the sound of flint striking steel.
There was strength in her. He could see it. He could hear it.
Julian chanced a glance at her profile to see high cheekbones and full lips. Dark lashes rimmed large brown eyes flecked with gold—and he suddenly chastised himself. He should not have noticed that about her, that her eyes held an ochre color unlike he had ever seen, but here he was feeling unnerved by this woman and fighting the urge to gawk at her.
Julian Baptiste III had been brought up better than to stare at a lady.
Or at least until now.
He was gentleman enough to admit that he had been struck dumb the second Violet Shield had opened the door and greeted him with an easy smile, a genuine smile, so unlike what he was used to seeing from strangers.
Life in New York City, even as a man with means and an influential family, was still exhausting, because even if he was a gentleman, he was still a man of mixed heritage. Those who balked at shaking his hand or serving him were forced to bow before the Baptiste name, and so he’d learned to wrap that power around himself, clothe himself in it like the finest bespoke attire.
He clasped his hands behind his back, careful to keep his eyes trained just over her shoulder. The woman’s dark eyes were too soft for him to trust himself with. Julian was no stranger to guarding himself around women who might seek to find themselves in a compromising position with an heir to a fortune, but this was different. Violet’s looks were of the trapping sort, but were the kind that disarmed for all their promised safety; tempted one to relax, and that was dangerous.
If he wasn’t careful, he’d forget himself and say something he would regret. He could feel it in his bones with the way she drew him to her.
He cleared his throat. “I’m unsure. Through the summer, possibly longer if the area suits me.”
“You won’t find our little town...lacking for entertainment?” Violet asked, scribbling in the ledger book the boarding house used to record guests.
He smiled, finally moving his gaze to meet hers, and felt his heart squeeze.
“No, I expect I’ll have plenty of entertainment on account of my sister and her family.”
Violet beamed at him and Julian felt himself go warm at her sunny expression. The coronary squeeze became nearly unbearable at the weight of such an expression. “Seylah is gorgeous. You must be very happy to have such a perfect little thing in your family.”
Damn it all. He’d been right about the ochre in her eyes. He nodded, looking away from her. “Quite. Maman is overjoyed by the new addition. I expect to have spoiled her entirely rotten by the time I return to New York.”
“Of course.” Violet shut the book and picked up a key. “It’s your right as her uncle.”
Julian cracked a smile, steadfastly avoiding looking Violet in the eyes again, and instead focused on the key in her hand. “My responsibility, I suppose.”
“One might say a sacred duty, even,” she said, coming around the desk to stand beside him.
“Ah, yes, the age-old tradition of spoiling a sibling’s progeny until they are ruined to the core. A time-honored tradition, and we Baptistes are nothing if not sticklers for tradition.”
She was close enough now that he could smell the faint scent of rosewater. Sweet and light as the laugh that slipped from her mouth at his joke—sweet and light, just like her.
Or rather, what he supposed she was, Julian reminded himself.
He didn’t know this woman even if it was like something had woken up inside him the moment their eyes had met. Like lightning, it was. Electrifying every part of him that had been put to sleep by the city and constraints of polite society. The shell around him had cracked, that perfect facade he kept in place that showed how unbothered he was by everyone and everything around him had splintered with a simple hello...and the mad thing was, Julian did not hate it.
Julian could think of only one time he’d ever heard anyone describe meeting anyone like that.
His father and mother.
He swallowed hard and took another half-step away from Violet, aiming to maintain his distance. It was only proper, no matter how much he wanted to walk closely to her as if they were familiar, not strangers newly met, but...intimate. His skin flushed hot at the thought and he bit back an angry groan at himself for letting his mind get away from him—again.
What was he? An untried boy in his first season?
“Are you alright?” Violet asked, stopping to look at him strangely, and Julian knew he had almost been found out.
“I’m quite alright—better than, in fact.”
“But just then…” She pointed at him and tilted her head to the side, the movement causing her dark hair to slip over her shoulders. Julian's fingers itched to see if her hair was as soft as it looked. He clenched his fingers together for a second before he shoved a hand into his pocket.
“Just then?” he prompted with as guileless a look as he could manage.
Violet blinked at him. “You growled,” she informed him.
“Ah, that,” he said, and chuckled, turning away to examine a painting on the wall as if the watercolor landscape were the most captivating art he’d seen since the Louvre. “That was a cough.”
“A cough?” Violet’s brow furrowed. “Are you unwell?”
“It’s a, well... it’s a small condition I have,” Julian said. One that apparently only took him when he was struck dumb at the sight of a dark-eyed beauty with a smile like the sun. He winced at himself.
Confound it.
“Did you have consumption?”
He well and truly coughed at that. “Consumption? Ah, no, no, it’s nothing like that.” He held his hands up, but Violet continued on as if he hadn’t spoken.
“Because if it is we can put you in one of the southern-facing rooms for your health.” Violet turned and made to go for the keys at the front of the boarding house with a worried look on her face.
“That won’t be necessary. I’m quite fine.”
She shook her head, giving him a pained look. “It wouldn’t do to have your health put upon by your lodging conditions. I had no idea you were sickly, I—”
Julian’s eyes widened, aghast. “I am not sickly.”
How had this happened? Sickly. Of all the things this woman thought of him while he went moon-eyed over her? He did his best to draw himself up, posture snapping into place as he worked to project an air of perfect health.
There were many things Julian wished Violet thought of him.
Manly? Of course.
Virile and in possession of strength of will? Certainly.
He’d settle for well-read and debonair, but sickly? No. Under no conditions did he want that to cross her mind when she looked at him, as she was now with her big brown eyes full of concern.
He’d made an ungodly mess of this. One errant growl and suddenly he had been stricken with cons
umption.
“But your cough,” she said.
“Is...a tickle, nothing more.” He inclined his head. “Please show me to the rooms. It’s fine, Miss Shield.”
She worried her bottom lip. That full, pink, plump lip that begged Julian to come closer. He stood still, feet planted where he was, and gave her a tight smile.
“If you’re sure.”
He moved to give her a gallant bow, more at home in a ballroom than the hall of Miss Hill’s boarding house. “I am. You needn’t make a fuss over me, Miss Shield.”
She shook her head, looking unsure, but her posture had relaxed somewhat, and if Julian didn’t know better he would swear that her cheeks were dusted a pretty pink.
Was she blushing? His heart sped up, pulse hammering against his chest. Had he made her blush?
Violet swallowed and met his eyes, and this time Julian knew it was he who had put that dusky color on her cheeks. That was dangerous knowledge, it was, but for whom Julian wasn’t quite sure yet.
“But your sister and her husbands, they—”
“Are quite the handful, are they not?” he asked, turning away from Violet. It was enough that she was blushing as she was, face flushed more like a dewy-eyed debutante than the cook she’d proclaimed herself to be.
The worry melted from her face as she sent another one of her heart-stopping smiles his way, though he only glimpsed it from his periphery, turned as he was under the guise of not paying attention.
What a farce that was. If Julian could preserve these happy looks, these unguarded moments with this woman, he would never want for anything again.
It had been so very long since anyone but his family had treated him like this. Hadn’t wanted anything from him. Gazed at him as soft-eyed as Violet was now, even when she didn’t think he saw.
“They are,” she confessed before turning to continue down the hallway. “I want to make sure you’re comfortable here while you visit your sister. You don’t know what a boon it’s been to the town for your sister to come teach here.”
“And I will be, Miss Shield. Of that I promise you. Consider me the same as any other boarder, please.”
She nodded, falling into step beside him. “Then please, call me Violet.”
Julian nearly stumbled over his own feet at the invitation, and when he turned a surprised look on her she shrugged. “No one calls me Miss Shield. I don’t—well.” She paused and looked down at her feet. “That’s for a lady.”
“And what are you if not a lady?” Julian asked before he could stop himself. He was elated at her allowing him to speak to her on friendly terms, but the slight frown, the pinch in her brow, that little slump to her shoulders that reminded him of a wounded bird wouldn’t allow him to enjoy the pleasure of saying her given name.
Violet’s eyes moved away from his. “I just...I’m not a lady,” she replied, her voice quiet in a way that Julian hated for the way she seemed to shrink in front of his very eyes. “What I mean to say is that I’m a working woman,” she added with a laugh that sounded hollow.
“Working or not, it has no bearing on whether you are a lady. Believe me when I tell you I can spot a lady at a hundred paces. And you, Violet, are a lady of the first degree.”
She laughed then, a real laugh that had his heart singing as loudly as the bells that rang in the New Year at Trinity Church.
“You say the strangest things, sir,” she said when they came to stop in front of a door that Julian supposed was meant to be his for the duration of his stay.
He held a finger aloft and gave it a wag. “We can’t have that.”
“Have what?”
“If I am to call you by Violet, then you can’t address me as sir or Mr. Baptiste. That’s my father. You must,” he said, then gave her his best beseeching look, “call me Julian.”
“But I-I’m just the cook. I’m not, I mean, I’m no one.”
Julian felt her words as surely as if he’d been caught unawares at the weekend boxing club he frequented. It was sharp, cutting, and left him shaking his head.
“That is quite wrong,” he told her. This woman was someone—could be someone to him—but he batted away that errant thought and continued speaking as if it hadn’t come unbidden to him as easily as it had. “Jobs do not determine who a person is. What you are on the inside does. Everything else is just details, Violet. Please call me by my given name. I beg you.”
Her eyes widened at the word beg and Julian wished he could rip it back from the air as soon as it fell from his lips, but he supposed what was done was done, so he forced himself to look unbothered by that little slip of the tongue.
“All right, si—er, Julian,” Violet said, her voice soft and unsure as if she were testing the word out for herself.
He quite liked the sound of his name on her mouth but knew better than to reveal it.
He smiled at her then. “Thank you.”
“Of course.” She leaned closer as if she wanted to say more, but then leaned away again and held his keys out to him. “These are for your rooms. Breakfast is served between the hours of seven and eight and lunch is at noon, but I am happy to make you a bite whenever the mood strikes you. If you need anything at all just, well, please ask.”
He took the keys from her and ignored the way her fingertips brushed his or the fact that the metal was still warm from her hand. Shoving it into the lock, he inclined his head.
“Thank you.”
“You’re very welcome…” She paused, as if not trusting herself to say his name without incident. “Julian.” She took a step back and again smiled a smile that made him feel light and alive in a way that he hadn’t known in years. At that Julian said the only thing he trusted himself to say.
“Goodnight, Violet.”
Thank You!
We hope you enjoyed Heart and Hand!
Julie, Forrest and Will’s story is at an end but your time in the Montana Territory doesn’t have to be over. There’s so much left to fall in love with in the town of Gold Sky! We hope you will come along with us for Julian and Violet’s love story featuring a male-order bride.
Yes, that was a pun. <3
Until then!
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About Rebel Carter
Rebel Carter loves love. So much in fact that she decided to write the love stories she desperately wanted to read. A book by Rebel means diverse characters, sexy banter, a real big helping of steamy scenes, and, of course, a whole lotta heart.
Rebel lives in Colorado, makes a mean espresso, and is hell-bent on filling your bookcase with as many romance stories as humanly possible!
Heart and Hand: Gold Sky Series Page 22
