Courting Julia Read online

  Well, she thought suddenly, looking critically at her image again and deciding that the redness would no longer be noticeable to anyone who did not know she had been crying, so he had had enough of an effect on her to have her cowering in her room, had he? She would be damned before she would give him the satisfaction. She was going to go back to the lake if it killed her.

  Besides, she thought, going through to her bedchamber again and picking up her bonnet and her parasol and pushing her feet into her slippers, she was starved.

  13

  There was not a great deal to be done in the village, but a summer at Primrose Park never seemed quite complete if the younger people did not spend a few hours there on at least one occasion. The main attraction when they were children had been the confectionery, which for some strange reason was a part of the milliner’s shop. And they had always loved to wander in the churchyard reading the old tombstones—the girls had liked to sigh over the children’s graves. And they had all liked to climb the bell tower, though that had been forbidden for two whole years after the vicar had complained to the old earl about the bell being rung in the middle of a Wednesday afternoon and throwing all the villagers into confusion. Daniel, only thirteen years old, and Frederick had been the culprits.

  In more recent years the rest of the milliner’s shop had had more attraction for the girls and the village tavern for the men. But the church and churchyard still drew them like a magnet

  They walked the two miles from the house to the village two days after the picnic at the lake. After a day of steady and heavy rain, the sun was shining again and they were all ready for exercise. Julia linked her arm with Augustus’s without waiting for an invitation.

  “Hello, Jule,” he said. “Where have you been moping for a day and a half?”

  “Must I have been moping,” she asked, “just because I have been keeping quietly to myself? The rain made any outdoor activity impossible. I had some embroidery to work on and an interesting book to finish. Why are you grinning like an imbecile?”

  “If you don’t want to tell me why you have been moping,” he said, “you don’t have to. You don’t need to tell ridiculous bouncers.”

  “How do you think I live when I am alone here with Grandpapa and Aunt Millie all the time?” she asked. “But I have been moping, Gussie. You are quite right. I had three marriage offers the day before last. What do you think of that?”

  Augustus whistled. “All three of them?” he said. “Freddie, Les, and Malcolm? Is that a woman’s dream come true, Jule? Which one are you going to accept? Or can’t you decide? Is that the problem?”

  “Not Malcolm,” she said pointedly. “Daniel.”

  “Dan.” He stopped walking suddenly and stared at her incredulously. “Dan offered for you? He must want Primrose Park quite desperately.”

  “Thank you, Gussie,” she said, mortified. “I really needed that.”

  “Oh, sorry, Jule,” he said. “It was not meant to be an insult. But we all know how Dan feels about you.”

  “He kissed me,” she said. “Oh, that is a quite inadequate description of what happened. He did far more than kiss me. Gussie”—she spoke in a rush—“I have needed to talk to someone. 1 have run through all the aunts and all the female cousins in my head and rejected them all. I might have chosen Camilla, but she is his sister. May I talk to you?”

  “I think you already are doing that, Jule,” he said. “But I know what you mean. Fire away then.”

  She gave him a highly expurgated account of what had happened two mornings before when she had met the earl while out riding. “And then he took me up to the rose arbor from the lake in the afternoon,” she said, “and apologized and told me I must marry him.”

  “Told you?” Augustus raised his eyebrows. “Now that was a mistake. Sometimes Dan can show lamentable lack of sense.”

  “Yes,” she said. “And then when I said no, I would rather be dead, he said he must insist.”

  “You said that?” he said. “About preferring to be dead? Not nice, Jule. He would not have liked that. So that is the end of it?”

  “I suppose so,” she said. “He has said nothing since. I suppose that means I have two offers to consider. Which should I accept, Gussie? Freddie or Les? They could hardly be more different from each other, could they? Who would ever guess that they are brothers?”

  “Let’s get back to Dan,” Augustus said. “You sounded almost disappointed when you said ‘I suppose so.’ Are you?”

  “Disappointed that Daniel has not renewed his offer?” She looked indignantly at him. “Or that he has not insisted further? Are you mad, Gussie? Daniel? I hate Daniel. I despise him. I would not marry him if he came with a gift of a million pounds. I would—”

  “By George,” Augustus said, “you are disappointed, Jule.”

  She stared at him openmouthed for a few moments. “If I am,” she said at last, “it is because I have no further opportunity to cut him down, to give him a piece of my mind. Gussie, why did it always bother me that Daniel disapproved of me? Why could I never just thumb my nose at him and go on my way and forget about him? Why does it always hurt, even now, when he catches me doing something that perfect ladies would not do and looks along that aristocratic nose at me? Why do I want to hurl myself at him and scratch his eyes out? It should not matter, should it? All the rest of you seem to like me and accept me as I am. Even Camilla, who is so quiet and so dignified herself. And even Malcolm although he never says anything. But I don’t feel disapproval coming from him. Why can’t Daniel like me too?”

  “Lord, Jule,” Augustus said, “I think you had better take a closer look at your feelings, girl. And if Dan forgot himself as far as to do what you say he did the other morning and then felt constrained to offer for you even though no one else had seen, then maybe he should do the same thing. By George, this is most interesting, you know. Dan. Who would have thought it?”

  “Sometimes, Gussie,” she said crossly, “you are no help at all. 1 have poured out my heart to you—my battered and very confused heart—and all you can do is utter imbecilic exclamations and give ridiculous advice. I tell you I would rather be dead than married to Daniel. I tell you I hate him. Can anything be plainer than that?”

  “Not even the nose on your face, Jule,” he said, grinning. “Or more to the point, the nose on Dan’s face. Well, well.”

  Julia withdrew her arm from his, on her dignity. “Well, here we are in the village,” she said, “and I am going to see if Miss Markham has any new bonnets in. Thank you for nothing, Gussie.”

  “Jule,” he said fondly.

  “Well really,” she said, looking back at him, troubled, “I wanted you to tell me something sensible and comforting, Gussie. I am so confused that I have to look down occasionally to make sure that my head is still facing the same way as my feet.”

  He chuckled and rubbed two knuckles across her nose.

  The Earl of Beaconswood had never understood quite what the fascination was with old churchyards, but it was something he and his cousins had always shared. It should have been morbid but was not. Perhaps it had something to do with history, he thought, with the realization that the village and the area around it had not sprung to life last week but had existed for hundreds of years. People had lived there and toiled and loved and died and left their descendants and names to live after them. Quite a number of the names on the tombstones still belonged to the villagers or the tenant farmers.

  And of course there was his uncle and aunt’s grave to be paused over and to quell any high spirits for a few minutes. Sometimes it was hard to remember that his uncle had been dead for such a short while. Nothing in their dress or their behavior at the house was designed to remind them of that.

  Julia lingered after the others, unusually subdued. She knelt down and touched the newly turned earth. The tombstone was not yet in place. It had been taken away so that the new details might be carved onto it. She was weeping silently, the earl realized, lingering too
a little way behind her while everyone else made off in the direction of the church and its cool interior. He did not intrude on her for a few minutes and handed her a large handkerchief when she finally rose to her feet.

  She looked up at him, startled and cross before taking the handkerchief and scrubbing at her eyes with it. “Well, why should I not shed a few tears for him?” she asked. “He was always good to me, Daniel. Too good perhaps. You always used to say he spoiled me. Perhaps he did. He gave me a great deal of love. I shudder to think of what being an orphan might have been like. I wish you would not creep up on me like that.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I should have allowed you some privacy.”

  “Another apology?” she said, making as if to hand back his handkerchief but changing her mind and stuffing it into her reticule instead. “I am going to call on Mrs. Dermotty. She will be hurt if I do not.”

  “The vicar’s wife?” he said. “I intended to pay my respects too, Julia. I will come with you.”

  Both the vicar and his wife were at home, and the youngest of their children, a little girl with apple cheeks and blond curls who hid behind her mother’s skirts on the doorstep of the vicarage. She was shy with the earl but peeped and smiled at Julia until Julia made a dive for her and scooped her up and twirled her around several times, sunny and laughing again while the child shrieked with laughter.

  The earl had not intended to go inside, but both the vicar and his wife were so very pleased to have callers from the house that he consented to take a cup of tea with them. And Julia was being dragged inside by the child to look at a new book her papa had brought her from Gloucester. Julia sat on the floor to look at it all through tea, one arm about the child, joining in the adult conversation too.

  Normally the earl would have been scandalized. A young lady sitting on the floor while taking tea in the vicar's house? But she looked so happy as did the child, and the vicar and his wife looked so fondly at her and talked to her about so many people and events that the earl knew little about that he began to see that there was nothing scandalous about her behavior. For the brief span of their visit she was bringing a little ray of sunshine into the vicarage.

  The same thing happened later when she announced her intention of calling upon Mrs. Girten and the Misses Girten, two sisters and a widowed sister-in-law, rather elderly and almost housebound, who would be hurt if they knew she had been in the village and not poked her head about their door—Julia’s words.

  He did not have to go with her. Indeed, she would doubtless be happier to be left alone. And he would be happier alone. But the others were sitting on the church wall or on the grass in front of it when they emerged from the vicarage and announced their intention of beginning the walk home. If he left her, the earl thought, she would have to walk home alone, and that would be most improper. Though he wondered how many dozens of times a year Julia walked alone to and from the village. He could not quite imagine Aunt Millie accompanying her unless the carriage was called out.

  The Girten ladies were delighted to see him and preened and smirked and tittered and drew out all their best party conversation for his benefit. They sent for tea despite his protests that he had just finished a cup at the vicarage. But Julia they treated quite differently. Their smiles softened and became genuine when they looked at or spoke to her. They made no objection when she jumped to her feet to take the tea tray from their maid’s hands and proceeded to pour the tea herself and hand around the cups and saucers. She should, of course, have left those honors to Mrs. Girten, but no one appeared offended. Indeed she was treated much like a favored daughter.

  She would be missed, the earl could see, if she was forced to move away from Primrose Park. Mrs. Dermotty had talked to her about the summer fair in August and had seemed genuinely dismayed when Julia had talked vaguely about perhaps not being there this year. And the Girten ladies talked about the school closing for the summer and the usual presentations to be made on the last day. Again Julia had hinted that perhaps she would not be there. Apparently she usually played a prominent and a popular role in both events.

  The earl bowed to the ladies on leaving. Julia hugged each of them and was hugged and kissed on the cheek in return.

  “Come again, dear,” the elder Miss Girten said to her. “You know it can never be too soon for us.”

  “And bring his lordship with you,” Mrs. Girten said and tittered when she realized he had heard.

  “Such a very handsome gentleman, my dear Miss Maynard,” the younger Miss Girten whispered. “He has great presence.”

  Julia, the earl was interested to note, blushed.

  And so, he thought as he offered his arm and she took it, they were doomed to spend the next half hour or so alone together on the walk home. Already the sunniness had gone from her manner again and she looked mulish, as if she was preparing to spar with him. Which was what they would undoubtedly do. They always did.

  And yet he had just seen something he had never expected to see—a Julia he liked.

  “I suppose,” she said, “you stayed because you thought I was going to do something unspeakably vulgar if you were not there to stop me. Or because you thought it grossly improper for me to walk home alone.”

  “It would have been improper, Julia,” he said. “Are you in the habit of doing it? Did Uncle and Aunt Millie allow it? It was very remiss of them.”

  Yes, they were back to their normal relationship. It felt quite comfortable, almost a relief. His emotions had been in turmoil for the past two days.

  “Grandpapa was human,” she hissed at him. “So is Aunt Millie. They have allowed me to live, to have some enjoyment out of life. You would squash the life out of me, Daniel, if you had your way. There would be nothing but sitting at home embroidering and taking tea with callers and walking outdoors with a maid or riding in the carriage. I could not live that way. I would suffocate.”

  “There are assemblies and balls and concerts and picnics and all sorts of legitimate ways in which to enjoy oneself, Julia,” he said. “One does not have to be scandalizing the world by swimming in next to nothing and engaging in foot races and dressing in a manner unbecoming to one’s sex and riding in a manner that invites a broken neck.”

  “I pity the woman you will marry,” she said. “If she has any life in her when you marry, it will be sapped from her soon afterward. There is no room for spontaneity, for sheer joy in your life, Daniel. Only for what is right and proper. Only for what other people expect of you. I would rather be dead than subjected to such a fate. I did not speak impulsively two days ago. I meant it.”

  “Did you?” he said curtly. He was feeling that inexplicable hurt again. “I did not doubt for a moment that you meant what you said. I will not renew the offer, Julia, so you must not worry that you will be the victim of my repressive, killjoy ways. Someone else will, someone who perhaps will feel that life with me might be a desirable thing. Someone who will believe that I can perhaps bring her happiness.”

  “What is her name?” she asked.

  He hesitated. He was no longer at all sure that he would be returning to Blanche. Somehow that relationship seemed to have been spoiled, almost as if he had been unfaithful to her. But then he had been, in intention if not in actual fact. He had wanted to possess Julia and had almost done it too. “Blanche,” he said. “The Honorable Blanche Morriston.”

  She was quiet for a while. “And will she be able to bring you happiness, Daniel?” she asked.

  “I believe so,” he said stiffly. “She is everything I have looked for in a wife.”

  She was quiet for so long this time that he thought the subject had been exhausted. But she spoke again. “Daniel,” she said, “you used to be so different. I had forgotten a great deal since I was so young at the time, but I have thought about those distant years a great deal in the past few days. You were always into mischief. You even more than Freddie. You used to lead the way and he used to follow.”

  “I was a child, Julia,�
� be said. “Or a boy, I suppose in the years you can recall. It is part of boyhood to get into as much mischief as possible, to get caught nine times out of ten, and to get thrashed most of those times. It is something one grows out of if one is to be a mature adult. I grew out of it.”

  “Too soon,” she said. “When your father died.”

  “I had a mother and a sister,” he said, “and a home and estate. And suddenly I was heir to an earldom and the estates and fortune that went along with it. I had to learn to take responsibility for all that, Julia. Perhaps I grew up sooner than I would have done otherwise, but it had to happen anyway. I was fourteen. Hardly a child.”

  “But all the light went out of you,” she said. “All the joy. I can remember my bewilderment, Daniel, the summer you came back as the Viscount Yorke. You were like a different person inside the same body. I can remember that for those first two summers I was at Primrose Park you used to ignore me much of the time—I was a very young child. But sometimes you used to take me up on your shoulders to carry me around. And occasionally you would take me up before you on your horse to give me short rides. You taught me to swim, you and Freddie. I suppose you have forgotten that you were my hero. I used to live for the time when you would come back.”

  Good God, the earl thought, was she speaking the truth? But he could remember the years when younger cousins had treated him worshipfully because he was older and taller and stronger than they. Julia must have been one of them for a few years. Her father and stepmother had still been alive and had neglected her shamefully. He had used to feel sorry for her. Yes, he could remember her launching herself into the lake and clinging, giggling, to him and Freddie while Susan and Stella and young Viola had hung back on the bank, terrified to take the dare that had been issued.

  Julia had never refused a dare. It had been very easy to teach her to float and even to swim. She had bobbed like a cork in the water, totally without fear provided he or Freddie stayed close. God, he had forgotten. All those golden years.