by Jane Ashford
“Really? What sort of problem?” Julia’s gaze did not waver.
“Nothing that would interest you. A trivial matter.”
“But I am interested in your tenants. I must be. And it can hardly have been trivial if it kept you from your dinner for a full hour.”
Sir Richard was speechless, more because of the unexpectedness of the attack than its severity. He did not recognize this Julia, and that made him deeply uneasy.
For her part, Julia had been seething with rage for what seemed like forever. That he should keep her waiting, on top of everything else, was too much. And now she was sure he was lying, and that he had been with her. Julia was no longer, by this time, the gentle girl who had accepted Sir Richard’s offer.
She had had a terrible twenty-four hours, swinging from rage to despair after her glimpse of her fiancé and his mistress. The turmoil she had experienced a few days earlier was nothing to this, for this was based on fact rather than rumor. Indeed, Julia was stunned to find herself at the mercy of a new personality, sprung full grown from some unknown corner of herself. She wanted Sir Richard, she found, and she wanted to destroy her hated rival. She also wanted revenge for the public and private humiliation they had brought her. The fierceness of these desires shook Julia deeply. And yet, there was a kind of exaltation to them, too. She had never felt anything so strongly.
“Let us go in to dinner,” said Lady Devere. “They cannot hold it much longer.” She took Sir Richard’s arm, and he stared down at her placid countenance, wondering if she could be unaware of the tension in the room.
Julia, who had marveled over this same obtuseness in both her parents over the last few days, could have told him that the older Deveres had apparently become so accustomed to docile serenity in their daughter that they were incapable of seeing anything else. But she was not in a mood to give him any information.
Conversation during dinner was commonplace. Lady Devere chattered about wedding plans, and Sir George expressed his eagerness to return to the country. Sir Richard and Julia contributed little, and ate less, but their silence went unmarked.
For this family party, the two men did not linger in the dining room, but went at once to join the ladies upstairs. There, Julia’s parents withdrew to the far corner and talked quietly together, for one purpose of the evening was to give the engaged couple an opportunity to be together. Not completely alone—the Deveres were too strict for that—but somewhat private at least. And as Sir George had jovially told his wife earlier, if Sir Richard should take Julia’s hand or sit rather near her, he wouldn’t be likely to object.
Both Richard and Julia had looked forward to such a chance. But tonight, all was changed. Julia sat stiffly in the very corner of the blue satin sofa, her eyes straight ahead, and Sir Richard watched her profile uneasily from the other corner.
“Is something wrong?” he asked. As soon as the words left his lips, he felt they were a mistake.
“Wrong?” replied Julia. “What could be wrong?” She meant this as a pointed hint, but as Sir Richard had no idea of her grievance, he merely frowned at her tone.
“Perhaps you are tired. Or have the headache?” he ventured.
“On the contrary. I feel perfectly well.”
Silence fell. Sir Richard searched his memory for some offense he might have committed, for Julia certainly seemed offended. He could think of none. The possibility that she might have heard of Bess, far less seen her, did not enter his mind. Indeed, Sir Richard retained the illusion that his rescue of Bess was secret. An enemy to gossip himself, he had never experienced its power. And he hadn’t counted on Lord Fenton’s malice, which spread the story even more rapidly than was usual.
“I apologize again for being late,” he said, grasping the only fault he could recall. “It really was unavoidable.”
“No doubt.” All Julia’s self-control was required to keep her voice from shaking. Unavoidable because you preferred to be with her, she was thinking.
Sir Richard abandoned this topic and searched for one that should please her. “The plans for the wedding sound delightful,” he went on. “I look forward to seeing the charming church your mother described. And a breakfast on the lawn should be pleasant.”
“If it doesn’t rain,” responded Julia. She had no experience with sparring. She only knew that she wanted to disagree with everything he said.
“Naturally.”
“You are glad it is to be in the country, I suppose.”
“I think it will be splendid.” He tried to inject enthusiasm into his tone, though he felt like saying he didn’t care a rap where it was so long as she was happy.
“It will remove us from town.” Leaving him free to disport himself with his paramour, she thought.
He frowned at her curtness. “The Season is nearly over,” he replied.
“So convenient.”
By now thoroughly puzzled, and beginning to be annoyed, Sir Richard leveled searching gray eyes at her. “In what way?”
Julia longed to tell him. But the whole weight of her training and the rules of polite society combined to prevent her. It was simply not possible to accuse one’s promised husband of flaunting his mistress about London. The words froze on her tongue. Men did such things. So people said. Many men, right up to the very top of the social ladder with the Prince Regent. She hadn’t thought it of Sir Richard. Julia’s throat felt tight, and she had to swallow. It didn’t matter. A lady was supposed to turn a blind eye to such habits. Her fiancé might even tell her so, should she dare to bring it up. At the idea, Julia’s cheeks flamed with rage and frustration.
Sir Richard was transfixed by the glow this gave her pale skin. In a gown of soft rose silk, Julia looked particularly lovely tonight. He remembered holding her in his arms and longed intensely to do so again.
“It’s sure to rain,” said Julia savagely. Surely the elements would match her mood.
He blinked. “Then we will move the wedding inside, I daresay.”
“No, it will be spoiled.” It already was. How could he not know that?
“Surely there is ample space for—”
“It will be spoiled, I tell you. The whole thing will be utterly ruined.” All Julia’s pent-up emotion flooded into this irrational point.
“Julia, what is the matter?”
His use of her name thrilled her; it was still so new. But this involuntary response merely increased her hurt and anger. “I am concerned about our wedding,” she snapped.
“But you are being totally illogical. There is no reason to think that…”
“I see.” Julia rose, trembling and on the brink of tears. “I will spare you any further illogic, then,” she added, and ran from the room before she broke down completely.
Her parents looked up, startled. Sir Richard stood and stared after her in bewilderment. It was as if, he thought wildly, Bess Malone carried some taint of irrationality which he had contracted and passed along to Julia. His whole world seemed to be going mad.
“What happened?” asked Lady Devere, hurrying over. “Is Julia ill?”
“She said not,” he replied, “but she is certainly not herself.”
“I’ll go to her.” She followed her daughter, and Sir George joined his future son-in-law.
“Females,” he said. “Unpredictable creatures. Shall we go down to the library and have a brandy?”
Sir Richard demurred. He was too shaken to exchange polite nothings with Devere. He didn’t even wish to see Julia, should she return. He’d had enough of feminine tantrums for one evening. He took his leave, with all the proper messages to Julia, and found a hack to carry him home. He had the brandy in his own library, shaking his head over the disorder his orderly life had fallen into.
He had only twenty minutes of quiet before his brother Thomas returned from a ton party and looked into the library on his way upstairs.
“How wise you were to refuse Bridlington’s invitation,” he said. “The concert was a dead bore, and no one there but dowdies. Did you have a pleasant dinner with the Deveres?”
“Not really, no.”
Tom came fully into the room. The concern that was never absent from his green eyes when they rested on his elder brother these days deepened. “Why?”
“Julia seemed out of sorts. She was quite unlike herself.” Sir Richard did not usually speak to Thomas so frankly, but he was still puzzled and uneasy.
Thomas hesitated. He had great respect for Richard, who had been the head of the family since their father died eight years before. In many ways, he had been father as well as brother to Thomas. Yet in the present situation, Thomas thought he was misguided. The problem was how to tell Richard so. He decided on the direct approach. “Perhaps she has heard the rumors.”
Sir Richard turned to gaze at him. “Rumors?”
His brother heaved a great sigh. “I declare, Richard, sometimes your deuced high-mindedness makes you blind as a bat. Of course, all London is talking of your visit to the Chaos Club and what occurred there. Other people aren’t like you, you know. They love to exchange gossip; they ferret it out, and the more scandalous, the better.”
“I was recognized?” said Sir Richard harshly.
Thomas shook his head at this question. “Naturally.”
“But I was masked, cloaked.”
“Only a man as honest as you could think that sufficient. Disguises are transparent in a place like that. The members all know one another; a stranger stands out a mile. And when it’s someone they have met constantly—Richard, they knew you almost at once. Did you recognize no masked acquaintances?”
Of course he had. How could he have been so foolish as to imagine he was unknown? Where had his wits gone, these last few days?
“Not only that, you made an enemy of Fenton. You know what he is.”
“A man who makes a mockery of the term nobility,” Richard replied.
“Precisely. He’s spreading the story with glee.” Thomas considered, then added, “And a healthy dose of vitriol. Making it sound as bad as possible.”
Richard digested this, his spirits sinking. “But surely no one would mention this to Julia,” he protested finally, “an unmarried girl.”
“You would not. I wouldn’t. But there are people who’d inadvertently let it slip in her hearing. Her reaction would be so interesting, you see. And then there are others who would claim it was their duty to let her know.”
“Damnable!” exclaimed Sir Richard.
“Perhaps. But very likely.”
Richard began to pace the floor. “This would explain her behavior tonight,” he muttered.
“She seemed offended?”
“Quite. But how could she believe malicious gossip? She knows me better than that.”
“She’s known you for two months, Richard. And who can say where she heard the story? Might have been someone she’s been taught to respect.”
Richard frowned.
Thomas decided to complete what he’d begun. “I think you should settle what to do with Bess as soon as may be, and remove her from London if possible. The talk will die down. And perhaps then you can explain to Julia.”
“I shall not speak of the Chaos Club to Julia! I would not sully her ears with such a topic.”
“How is she to discover the truth, then?”
Sir Richard shrugged and turned away. He would not admit to his younger brother that he was hurt and disappointed in Julia. That she would believe scurrilous tales about him, whatever their source, wounded him deeply. He had thought that after years of searching, he had found the woman he could both love and respect—the woman to share his life. He’d had no doubts of her; she was apparently not similarly constant, and this called everything into question. She put the false assertions of others above his own demonstrated integrity.
“Perhaps Mama could drop a word in her ear,” ventured Thomas cautiously, wary of the set expression on his brother’s face.
“No. This is my affair. I will settle it.”
“But, you know, Richard—”
“There is no more to be said, Tom.”
His gray eyes had gone cold, a sign Thomas knew of old. It meant that it was no good talking any more. Richard would not listen. He bowed to the inevitable and said good night. Sir Richard did not follow him upstairs for a long time.
Seven
“But what’s the harm in it, Aunt Dora?” said Michael Shea in a wheedling voice. “She can’t stay shut up in the house all the day long. I’ve often heard you say yourself that a person must have fresh air. A turn about the park, then, and right back here she comes.”
“I can’t go out just now,” protested Dora Hanlon. “I have a cake in the oven, and…”
“I’ll take her,” Michael assured her. “And watch her like a hawk, I will, I swear.”
His aunt eyed him with suspicion. “What mischief are you up to now?”
His bright hazel eyes went wide and innocent. “Mischief?”
“I’ve known you since you were a babe, Michael Shea, and mischief is all you’re ever at. Your poor mother…”
“Now, Aunt Dora, don’t be starting that. Please. You know I treat her well. Who bought her the cottage, now, eh?”
“But how? Where did the money come from? That’s what troubles her, and all of us.”
Her nephew turned away, walking to the back door before facing her again. “Let that be,” he replied in a quiet voice quite unlike his usual lilt.
Mrs. Hanlon met his level gaze for a long moment, then her eyes dropped. She moved heavily to the stove and picked up the steaming kettle with a cloth, carrying it to the table and beginning to make the tea she’d promised him when he arrived. Her deft, familiar movements bridged the silence between them. By the time the leaves were steeping, Michael had begun again. “A simple walk, Aunt,” he said.
It took him twenty minutes, but he at last persuaded her to let him take Bess to the park.
“Ah, you can talk the leaves off the trees, Michael,” she said at last. “Go, then, I never could refuse you anything you really wanted. But if you’re not back in an hour…”
“Aunt Dora!” His voice was reproachful. “Didn’t I say we would be, then?”
Mrs. Hanlon merely sniffed.
When Bess was told about the prospective outing, she was delighted, her pleasure marred only by the fact that she had no new gown to wear. Those she had been promised by Sir Richard had been forgotten in the recent furor, though not by Bess. She regretted them now, vociferously and at length. She came very near refusing to go in her shabby white dress, but the lure of the park finally prevailed, along with the loan of a shawl by Mrs. Hanlon so that she needn’t disgrace herself in her threadbare blue cloak.
The two set out together at midmorning. Though they were strangers, neither was the least shy, and they were soon chatting happily about Ireland and their families there, and how they had come to London.
“I thought it would be so grand,” confided Bess. “But it’s mainly dirty and noisy and chock-full of impertinence. Sometimes I wish I had never come.”
“It has its nice spots,” he answered.
“But we aren’t welcome in them.” Then, struck by something in his tone, Bess scanned Michael Shea carefully for the first time. “What do you do in London?” she asked him. “Are you a clerk? Or a shop assistant?” She examined his clothes.
“Do I look like one of those?” he asked in return.
“N-no.” Bess gazed up at him, puzzled.
Shea grinned, but did not enlighten her further.
“You must have some job,” she continued slowly. “But why aren’t you there now, at this time of day? It isn’t a holiday.”
He remained silent, and Bess became more intrigued
. “Tell me,” she begged, smiling enticingly.
“Let us say that I have a great deal of sympathy with what you said the other night,” he answered.
“What I said?”
He grinned. “Shouted, then. About respectable employment.”
“Oh.” Bess looked down, remembering her tirade, then up again, examining his face with new interest. She saw only a handsome, rather impudent countenance that gave nothing away. “Why won’t you tell me?”
“I might. Sometime. Here’s the park.”
They entered through a pillared gate and strolled along one of the gravel paths that wound through the green. Spring was far advanced, and there were flowers on all sides. “It is very pretty,” was Bess’s comment.
“You don’t sound particularly keen.”
“Well, it’s all so…excessively tidy.”
Michael Shea looked down at her, startled and impressed. “It is, isn’t it? I’ve often thought the same myself.”
“Have you? Perhaps it’s because we’re Irish.”
“Aunt Dora wouldn’t agree with that.”
“No?” Bess considered what she had seen of Dora Hanlon. “I suppose not.”
“You are a wonder, aren’t you? And a beautiful one.”
Bess opened her blue eyes wide. “Do you think I’m beautiful, Mr. Shea?”
“Ah, don’t be giving me that innocent stare. You know you are. That’s more than clear.”
This time, Bess was the one startled. But before she could reply, she heard her name spoken behind them, and both of them turned.
They had come near one of the drives, and a mounted gentleman, dressed in the height of fashion, confronted them. He threw a leg over his high-bred horse and jumped down, removing his beaver hat as he did so. “It is Miss Malone, is it not? I don’t think I am mistaken.”
Bess gazed up into the lined face of Lord Fenton. “That is my name,” she replied.
Lord Fenton smiled. “I thought so. We, er, encountered one another at the club several nights ago.” His eyes slid to Michael calculatingly, and then back to Bess.