Season for Temptation

by Theresa Romain

  Had it really all happened in only a day? Unbelievable.

  Well, she hoped with all her might that he would say nothing of the kind. Her mind whirled even as her voice mechanically made the proper greeting and her head inclined for a curtsy, and she saw her relatives doing the same, their faces as bemused as hers must be. If he should offer for her again, what should she say? If James truly refused to marry her, this could be her only hope for social recovery. For a family of her own.

  No, even so, she still couldn’t do it. She must trust that things would work out with James.

  Somehow.

  From her position next to Lady Irving, Julia saw her aunt draw aside the footman who had shown in their guest.

  “Fool,” her ladyship hissed in an undervoice. “We are not receiving callers at this time.”

  The footman gulped, but replied, “My apologies, my lady. You had told me that Sir Stephen might be shown up at any time he called.”

  With an expression of annoyed dismay, Lady Irving dismissed the servant and turned to their guest with a bright, false smile. Fortunately, Sir Stephen had noticed none of this exchange, as Louisa had directed his attention toward the choice of a comfortable seat and ascertained that he needed no refreshment.

  “I fear this is not entirely a visit of pleasure,” the baronet intoned, “although of course it is always an honor to be in the presence of ladies.”

  He nodded at Lady Irving and Louisa, and Julia felt a gnawing sense of doubt begin to grow in her stomach. What did that mean? Was he referring to the fact that Julia was the only untitled woman here, or . . . was this about that cruel news item that cast doubts on her respectability?

  She couldn’t think of anything to say, and apparently neither could her aunt and Louisa, because all three women just stared at him, waiting for him to come to the point.

  “Yes, well,” he continued, looking a bit discomfited at having three steady gazes on him, “what I have to say is somewhat personal, for the ears of Miss Herington. I deem it only appropriate that you remain here as chaperone, Lady Irving, but I would like to give Miss Herington the opportunity to select the audience for this conversation.”

  He cast his eyes from one woman to the next. Nobody budged.

  Finally, Julia replied in a wooden voice, “Anything you have to say to me may be spoken in front of my aunt and my sister.” She couldn’t imagine what was coming, but she knew it wouldn’t be good.

  “I see.” Sir Stephen hesitated, then began, “This is difficult for me to say, but I am anxious that there should be no confusion between us, Miss Herington. My proposals of yesterday, and my regard for you, were based upon an apparent misunderstanding of your character and proclivities.”

  Julia gasped. The nerve!

  Sir Stephen continued, “I am sure you understand to what I refer—the unfortunate, ah . . .”

  “Yes, we know,” Lady Irving broke in crisply. “Come to the point, man.”

  Sir Stephen cleared his throat and looked uncomfortable. “Ah . . . very well. I, ah, wanted to let you know that I will not be renewing my proposal of marriage to you, Miss Herington. I do condole with you and your family for this very public embarrassment, but I am sure you understand that I am looking for a wife of moral uprightness.”

  Julia stood, and her relatives echoed her movements at once. Sir Stephen looked doubtfully at them, and then slowly rose himself, as was proper.

  Always, what was proper. Julia couldn’t blame the man for being horrified, but honestly. Couldn’t he have given her credit for enough tact not to run to him for a haven after she was publicly condemned for being with another man?

  “Thank you for your extremely enlightening message, Sir Stephen,” she replied in a cool voice that fell just short of courtesy. “I assure you I had no intention of pressuring you into a renewal of those proposals you extended to me yesterday. As I mentioned then, and as must be abundantly clear to you now, I care for another.”

  Sir Stephen flinched at her chilly reply, and pressed on inexorably, his eyes worried. “I meant no disrespect, Miss Herington. I do feel for you, most sincerely, to be used and cast aside by one whom I had regarded as a friend to us both.” He shook his head in sorrow. “I had thought Matheson would at least act honorably after exposing you to such public condemnation, but I fear I was mistaken in his character.”

  “What do you mean?” Lady Irving asked, her eyes narrowing. “Matheson’s offered to marry her. We’ve just received a note from him to that effect.” The lie tripped off her lips smoothly.

  The baronet looked taken aback by this statement. “Is that so? I am happy to be wrong, then. Only I just paid him a visit to commiserate on his public misfortune, and he said nothing about it. I was most distressed at his detachment from the whole affair.”

  “He was . . . at home?” Louisa asked, her eyes wide and startled. She looked quickly from Julia to Lady Irving.

  “Why, yes,” Sir Stephen replied. “Very much so. He was taking coffee with his mother when I arrived. They seemed most convivial. His mother was even speaking of plans to attend some type of a musicale with Lord and Lady Alleyneham.”

  Lady Irving swiftly moved to the door and opened it for the baronet. “Thank you very much for your call, Sir Stephen. You’ve been most enlightening. We need not keep you any longer.”

  Their guest nodded his understanding, and with a last stricken, sorrowful look at Julia, he bowed his farewell.

  He had looked genuinely sad for her. For them all. Julia wondered if he had loved her, after all. If so, it must have been a terrible shock for him to read that morning’s scandal sheet.

  But she had bigger problems to consider now than the degree of Sir Stephen Saville’s disappointment. Eventually, he would overcome it. But she . . . she wasn’t sure she would get over hers.

  Because James was at home.

  He was home, and he was talking about going out and about publicly with her friend Charissa Bradleigh, while she was here waiting for him to show up and marry her so she wouldn’t be ruined. He must have sent that note—or, if it wasn’t his handwriting, then he must have had someone else send it for him.

  She didn’t understand, but she didn’t have to. Waiting around was intolerable, and waiting around with the entire ton ready to pity her, judge her, and give her the cut direct was even worse than intolerable. If there was such a thing.

  Julia looked up to meet the eyes of her aunt and sister. They were both staring at her, open-mouthed, stricken, waiting for her reaction to Sir Stephen’s revelations.

  “I still don’t believe it,” Louisa insisted quickly, but her eyes were wounded and doubtful. Lady Irving said nothing, only shook her head.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Julia said in what she hoped was a calm voice. “Well, that’s not true. Of course it matters. It matters more than anything.”

  She choked for a second, and with an effort, held back angry tears to explain. “Whether he wrote that terrible note or not, he’s not here. He didn’t come when I said I needed him.

  “Maybe it’s all a misunderstanding; maybe not. I can’t imagine that he wouldn’t marry me after he promised to.” She darted a quick look at Louisa, remembering too late that her sister had, only two days ago, been the lady engaged to the viscount in question. “But I can’t wait around anymore to see what he’ll do, or when. I can’t just do nothing and wait for him to save me. I want to leave; I want to go home. That’s the only thing I can do, unfortunately.”

  “I’ll second that,” Louisa said. “I’m ready to leave here for good.”

  She wrapped Julia in a tight hug. “I’m so sorry. I can’t believe it either. Maybe we can write to him again when we get home,” she suggested.

  Lady Irving shook her head. “It’s for him to make it right.” For the first time in Julia’s memory, the countess looked spiritless. Seeing her vivacious, sharp-tongued aunt brought low was, in Julia’s mind, the most shocking development of all. If her aunt no longer believed in James .
. . maybe that was that, then.

  “We’ll leave today,” the countess decided. “As soon as we can be packed.”

  “Need we wait for that?” Julia pleaded. “Simone could follow with the trunks, couldn’t she?”

  She searched her aunt’s doubtful countenance, begging with her eyes for understanding. Please, please, let us go now. Please let us get out of this terrible situation. Please let us go home.

  “Very well,” Lady Irving assented at last, her voice regaining some of its strength. “We’ll go as soon as the carriage can be brought round. I’ll have the knocker removed from the door at once.” She grimaced. “We certainly don’t need anyone else coming by to throw their pity in our face.”

  “But what if James comes by?” Julia asked. She couldn’t help wondering, or just a little, still hoping.

  “If he comes,” her ladyship said scornfully, “I don’t suppose the simple fact of the knocker being off the door would stop him from finding you.”

  Within twenty minutes, they were in the carriage and on their way back to Kent. James had not, after all, come for her.

  Chapter 32

  In Which Julia Receives a History Lesson

  The family, the servants, and probably even the assorted livestock of Stonemeadows Hall were surprised to see Lady Irving’s crested carriage drive up without any notice late that afternoon. And they were even more surprised to see the carriage disgorge three very harriedlooking and travel-worn women who carried not a single bandbox between them.

  Lord Oliver greeted his sister and children warmly, happy as always to see his relatives. He then drifted away, musing aloud to himself about some essential aspect of estate management or cow breeding.

  Lady Oliver, however, did not simply take the arrival of the countess and her charges in stride and flutter on with her day. Only the least astute observer (which Lord Oliver decidedly was) could fail to notice that something had gone seriously and suddenly awry.

  “What on earth happened?” she asked, plying Lady Irving, Louisa, and Julia with tea and biscuits as soon as they could settle themselves in the drawing room. “Are you all right, all of you?”

  Lady Irving opened her mouth to speak, from sheer force of habit, but then seemed to think better of it. She looked at Louisa, Louisa looked at Julia, and Julia looked back blankly at the two of them.

  “I don’t know how even to begin to tell her,” Julia admitted. The very thought was too daunting. All through the brief journey home, she had tried to keep her mind away from James, but it had taken all her willpower. Now that they had arrived, she wanted nothing but to sob onto her mother’s shoulder.

  If her mother would let her, knowing the truth of what Julia had done.

  “Everything is fine, Mama,” Louisa said, easing most of the apprehensive look from Lady Oliver’s face. “At least, we are all unharmed.”

  Lady Irving snorted. “Physically, perhaps. But let me tell you, Elise, your girls have had a rough emotional time of it. That viscount doesn’t have the slightest idea how to behave toward persons of quality. He has used both of your daughters extremely ill. And probably he kicks puppies, too,” she added for good measure.

  Lady Oliver was taken aback by this outburst. “Puppies?” she asked blankly. “I don’t understand. Did you keep a dog in London?”

  Julia shook her head. “Aunt, you are only cluttering the issue with hyperbole.” A memory flashed into her head, of Sir Stephen Saville gravely informing her that she had been “hyperbolic.” Poor man. It seemed as if it had been years ago.

  Well, for all the similarity her future life would bear to her life in London, it might as well have been years ago.

  She took a deep breath, and looked at Louisa for permission to tell her mother everything. At her sister’s nod, Julia spoke as quickly as she could, trying not to consider her words too deeply for fear that she might choke on them.

  “Louisa broke her engagement to James due to unhappiness. I love—loved—him, though, and he loved me in return. We were involved in a scandal and this morning he sent a note saying that he refused to marry me. So we left. And here we are.”

  She looked anxiously at her mother, waiting for a reply. Lady Oliver shut her eyes for a few seconds, then opened them, and they were full of sympathy.

  “Oh, my dear girls,” she said softly. “My dear sister.” She reached to gather them all in a hug at once, which involved a lot of uncomfortable bending and squishing together as three grown women tried to scoot within the grasp of one.

  To Julia, however, this seemed not the smallest bit ridiculous. She felt intense relief that she’d been able to clear the first hurdle of telling her mother without, first of all, crying her head off, and second of all, provoking any type of enraged reaction (Lady Irving’s outburst about the puppy-kicking notwithstanding). True, she’d given only the vaguest outline of what had happened, but it was enough. Her mother wanted to hug her, not boot her out of the house.

  So. She deserved to know the rest of it. And maybe . . . maybe it would help Julia to say it all again. Maybe the whole sad ending of the affair would become a little more real, and maybe she could stop grasping at the faint hope that it would all work out in the end.

  But it wouldn’t be easy to tell it all.

  Julia spoke next to her aunt and sister. “Would you mind leaving us alone?”

  Lady Irving began to protest, not wanting to miss the chance to add her considered opinion of the viscount and his moral flaws, but Louisa rose at once to leave the room. The countess looked after her reluctantly for a moment, then also stood.

  “Very well,” she agreed. “We’ll wait in the breakfast parlor or some such nonsense. But I’m taking the biscuits. I need fortification after what I’ve been through today.”

  Julia rolled her eyes at this statement. She could have done with a biscuit herself, or perhaps a dozen. But she supposed she should just be glad to have her other relatives out of the room. She didn’t want to listen to her aunt rail against James, even though he had failed her. And she didn’t want to talk about the situation in front of Louisa’s bruised eyes. If there was a good side to this at all, it was that Louisa had been able to come home as she wished. Still, Julia couldn’t help feeling that she had added to Louisa’s misery, even though her sister had not only forgiven her but given her blessing for Julia to be with James.

  Once she was alone with her mother, Julia again drew a deep breath for courage. She looked at her mother’s sympathetic blue eyes, so much like her own. It was hard to know where to begin. She had always told her mother everything, and her mother had always understood—but then again, nothing had ever really happened to Julia before. She’d lived her life in the country, seeing the same small circle of people over and over again. She’d certainly never been in love before, or publicly humiliated, for that matter.

  “My girl,” Lady Oliver began with a soft smile. “It’s good to see you again, no matter what the cause for your return.” She put her arm around Julia’s shoulders and added, “You don’t have to tell me anything else if you don’t want to.”

  This permission, this graciousness, freed Julia’s tongue at last, and she was able to tell her mother everything. She spoke for what seemed like hours, as Lady Oliver listened quietly and sympathetically.

  She told her mother how she had fallen in love with James almost at once; how guilty she had felt, knowing he belonged to Louisa; how she finally realized she must try to forget him and seek a match with someone else. She described Sir Stephen, how he had pursued her and proposed to her. How Louisa had enlisted her help in delivering the news of the broken engagement. How Julia had gone to James’s home to talk to him.

  The next part was more difficult to tell. “I spent time with him in his home, Mama. Of an intimate nature,” she admitted. “And then, as I was leaving, we were seen together.”

  Lady Oliver read between the lines. “Oh, dear,” she replied. “That was quite a step to take.”

  Julia looked
nervously at her mother’s face. “Are you angry with me?”

  Lady Oliver shrugged, her expression as untroubled as ever. “It’s not a good idea for a young woman, because of the risk of a baby. But in this case, he wants to marry you, so I think all shall be well, even if there is a baby.”

  “A baby,” Julia repeated. She felt numb. She hadn’t even thought of the possibility of a baby.

  Lady Oliver noticed her daughter’s thunderstruck expression. “Why are you so worried, my girl? What does it matter if the baby comes a week or two earlier than it might have if you waited for your marriage? Babies always come in their own time; no one will ever know the difference.”

  “But, Mama,” Julia insisted, “he won’t marry me.” In a flat voice she assumed to hide her growing terror—dear God, if there would be a baby, how would she care for it, all alone in the world?—she told her mother about the scandal item in the morning paper; the messages sent and received; Sir Stephen’s rescinded proposal and the information about James’s whereabouts.

  “So he must have felt that he had been disgraced, and he changed his mind about marrying me, which I thought he had only suggested in the first place because of what we had done, and I felt uneasy about it. And as it turns out, I was right to feel that way, because he never came for me, and I shall have a baby and be a disgrace to you and be cast out alone into the world,” Julia finished. She was wrung out at the end of her tale; she could do nothing but gasp for breath and stare at her mother with haunted eyes.

  Lady Oliver stared back at her for a moment, absorbing this frantic stream of words. And then she laughed.

  And she kept laughing, for what seemed to Julia like minutes on end, her loud peals of amusement finally simmering down into giggles, but breaking out again periodically into another hearty chuckle.

  “Oh, my goodness,” Lady Oliver said, wiping at her eyes, as her daughter gaped at her in hurt shock. “Oh, I’m sorry to laugh at you. But you are just so funny.”