by Candace Camp
“You think he wants to kill me?” Nicholas asked, startled.
“Is that so unlikely?” Juliana countered. “His father tried it, after all. And Crandall was most emphatic about wishing that Trenton had succeeded in getting rid of you. If you were to die, Crandall would inherit this land, wouldn’t he? Would he not become Lord Barre?”
“Well, yes…he is next in line. But that is all he would inherit. My own fortune would go by will to you, as my wife.”
“I don’t think Crandall cares about your fortune. What he wants is the land and the title.”
“Crandall wouldn’t have the courage. He has always been a weakling—the sort who hurt those who were smaller than he or in his power. At heart, he is a coward.”
“How much courage does it take to shove a man down the stairs, as his father did?” Juliana countered. “You did not see the way he looked today, Nicholas. Crandall is filled with such bitterness and hatred for you.”
In her concern, she reached out and took his arm in both her hands, looking up at him intently. He laid his hand over hers. “All right. I will watch out for him.”
When she continued to look at him doubtfully, Nicholas smiled and added, “I promise. Don’t worry. I won’t let Crandall harm me. Now…let us talk of something more pleasant. How lovely you look in that dress, for instance.”
Juliana chuckled, her heart lightening, and she allowed her concerns to slide to the back of her mind. “Complimenting me on my dress, sir, is merely complimenting your own good taste. ’Tis one of the ones that you picked out.”
“It was not the dress I was complimenting,” he responded, his eyes twinkling back at her. “It was the way you look in it. The dress is little by itself. It only allows your beauty to be shown.”
“Flatterer.” Juliana looped her arm through his, and they continued on their way down the path.
It felt so good, so right, she thought, to be with Nicholas like this. She was determined not to let the sensations that ran through her when she was with him lead her into ruining the wonderful companionship they could have. They were friends, first and foremost, and she would see to it that they remained so.
MRS. COOPER LIVED in a cottage just outside the village. It was a very small thing and quite overgrown with ivy, with a garden of riotously blooming flowers in front of it. The housekeeper came to the door at Nicholas’s knock, and she peered out for a moment at Juliana before her face cleared and she beamed.
“Miss Juliana! And Mr. Nicholas—Lord Barre, I should say now. I had heard you were coming back to Lychwood, and I was hoping I might see you.”
“Of course I came to see you,” Juliana told her, stepping forward and hugging the short, stout woman.
Mrs. Cooper stepped back, patting at her hair as though it might have somehow escaped the large white cap into which it was neatly tucked. “Come in, please, and sit. Let me get you some tea. You must be thirsty. Have you walked all the way from the Hall?”
She bustled into the small kitchen, and they could hear her pumping water and putting the kettle on to boil, then rattling among the dishes. A few minutes later, she returned to the room, carrying a tray that contained not only a white china teapot and cups and saucers, but also a plate piled with small sweet cakes.
“It’s good to see you again, Miss Julie,” she told Juliana, reaching over to pat her hand. “It’s been so long.”
“I know. I have missed you,” Juliana told her. She had conscientiously written to the woman over the years, letting her know where she was and what she was doing, but she felt a trifle guilty that she had not visited her. “But once I left here…”
“No need to explain, my dear,” the older woman assured her kindly as she poured the tea out into their cups. “I know what I know. It was clear to me that you wouldn’t be coming to visit at the Hall after you left.”
She smiled as she handed them their tea. “But now here you are, returning to Lychwood Hall as the mistress. Your mother would have been so proud.”
Juliana returned her smile, not sure what to say to that statement. But Mrs. Cooper did not seem to need any reply. She simply plowed on, talking about Juliana’s mother. It was clear that Mrs. Holcott held a revered place in the woman’s heart.
“She was a saint, your mother, a saint. Sad, always sad, but did ever a word of complaint escape her lips?” Mrs. Cooper shook her head in answer to her own question. “No. Never. She’d been given a poor lot in life, but she accepted it and carried on.”
“She missed my father terribly,” Juliana agreed. She remembered her mother looking wan and sad, moving through the days like a ghost, the stark black of her widow’s weeds making her appear even smaller and paler than she was.
“Her heart was in the grave with him.” Mrs. Cooper nodded. “I cried something fierce when she died, but I knew it was for me, not her. She was glad, I know, to be reunited with Mr. Holcott. She was at peace at last. And she didn’t suffer much. It took her quick-like, her heart.”
Juliana nodded. “Yes. The doctor told me it would not have been slow and painful.”
“Like he went,” Mrs. Cooper went on, nodding vaguely toward the wall.
Juliana was not sure about whom the woman was speaking, but then the housekeeper added, her voice dripping with scorn, “Trenton Barre, I mean.”
There was no need to ask how Mrs. Cooper felt about Nicholas’s uncle, Juliana thought. The look on her face went beyond dislike.
“I do not know how he died,” Juliana said. “I was no longer living here at the time.”
“Dropsy,” the housekeeper said. “Painful. He was swollen up like a toad. They said it was his liver—no wonder, given the way he drank. He lingered for months.” She shrugged. “Just a taste of what he was going to get hereafter.”
Juliana blinked, somewhat taken aback by the venom in the woman’s voice. She suspected that Mrs. Cooper was right in her prediction of the sort of afterlife Nicholas’s uncle had faced, but it was not common for anyone to speak ill of the dead, even when what one spoke was the truth.
Fortunately, once again no reply was required of them, for Mrs. Cooper went back to the subject of her beloved Mrs. Holcott and the years she had spent working at her house. It wasn’t difficult to maintain a conversation with her. Juliana needed to do no more than nod or shake her head, or make an appropriate comment whenever the talkative woman paused for a breath or cast a look of inquiry at her.
Sometime later, after they had finished their tea and Juliana had recalled every fond memory she had of the time she had spent in the cottage on the Barre estate, she and Nicholas took their leave of Mrs. Cooper and started home once again.
They walked along companionably, enjoying the fresh summer air and the quiet of the afternoon after the small confines of Mrs. Cooper’s cottage. It was a moment before Juliana even realized that Nicholas had taken her hand as they walked. When she did, a treacherous heat stole up from that hand and spread through her body. She cast a sideways glance at him, wondering if he had been as unconscious of his action as she.
His hand was warm around hers, the palm slightly roughened, and Juliana’s skin tingled at the contact. Whereas a moment before she had been pleasantly comfortable in his presence, now she was supremely aware of everything about him—how close his arm lay to hers, the texture of the cloth upon it, the thick brush of the dark lashes that framed his eyes, the clear-cut line of his jaw, faintly shadowed now. She wondered how it would feel to touch his cheek, if the skin was smooth or already roughened with incipient stubble.
He glanced down at her, and Juliana’s cheeks warmed. Quickly she cast about for some topic of conversation other than the one on which her thoughts had dwelled. They had emerged from a copse of trees and were standing on a ridge. Across a meadow, they could see Lychwood Hall, standing on another rise in the land. The sun was low in the sky, and it bathed the gray stone house in a golden light.
“Look.” Juliana pointed across at the house. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it
?”
“Mm,” Nicholas replied noncommittally. “If one doesn’t know it.”
Unconsciously, they both sighed. Nicholas looked down at her, smiling a little. “Are you ready for another supper?”
“Not if it is like last night’s. Perhaps Crandall won’t be there.”
“I am afraid that’s a vain hope.” He looked back at the house. “It seems a shame that one cannot choose one’s relations.”
“What are you going to do?” Juliana asked softly.
“About Crandall?” Nicholas shook his head. “I wish I knew. He seems to want to force my hand. As if he will somehow win something if he drives me to tossing him out of the house. I can’t imagine what he thinks it will get him.”
“Perhaps what he wants is confirmation of what he has always believed about you,” Juliana answered. “To justify the way he treated you. What his father did, what he tried to do, to you. Perhaps so you will give him that last little push he needs to get the courage to eliminate you.”
“You won’t let that go, will you?” He shook his head.
“I can’t. Crandall is a dangerous man.”
“He is too petty to take seriously,” Nicholas retorted, but at Juliana’s look, he added, “But I will take care around him. I will be quite cautious.”
“I don’t want anything to happen to you.”
“I know.” Nicholas looked down into her eyes for a long moment, and Juliana saw something change and darken in his gaze.
She tensed. He was going to kiss her.
But then he relaxed, moving back just a fraction. “Well?” he asked, a sardonic smile curving his lips. “Shall we go face the dragons once again?”
Juliana nodded, and they started forward.
THE DAYS THAT FOLLOWED moved quickly. There was little time to make preparations for the wedding, and the servants added to the burden by continually consulting with Juliana on even minor details of running the household, a situation that Juliana suspected was engineered by Lilith. At other times Lilith threw everything into disarray by issuing conflicting orders to the servants.
Juliana was determined to keep everything running smoothly, however, so she swallowed her irritation with Nicholas’s aunt and simply coped with the problems as best she could. Seraphina was at least friendly enough and did not do anything to obstruct Juliana, but she was little help, for she was still determinedly lazy, spending most of her energies on thinking of ways to avoid doing anything.
Crandall’s wife Winifred was at least helpful. She offered in her rather shy manner to help Juliana in whatever way she could. Juliana set her to addressing the invitations, and she was pleased to see that the girl had a beautiful copperplate hand. Juliana, who had always felt that her own handwriting fell short of beauty, was happy to turn the matter over to her.
Juliana sat beside her, blotting, folding and sealing the invitations as Winifred finished them, then marking them off the list. She glanced over and saw that Winifred’s long sleeve had fallen back almost to her elbow as she wrote. Her forearm was circled with several small purplish bruises, dark against the girl’s white skin. She opened her mouth to ask what had happened, and in that instant, she realized that the bruises lay in a ring, with a row of fingertip-size spots, and she knew at once that they must have come from someone strong grabbing the girl around the arm and squeezing hard.
She must have made some noise of astonishment, for Winifred looked up and saw where Juliana’s eyes were directed. She flushed and quickly whipped her sleeve back into place, covering the bruises, then turned her eyes back to her task.
Juliana looked away, anger rising in her. She was certain that the bruises must have come from Winifred’s husband. Crandall had obviously been impatient and irritable with the girl the times that Juliana had been around them, and it would not surprise her at all to learn that he had grabbed Winifred roughly or even hit her. She felt a fierce desire to help the girl, to protect her in some way.
But what was she to do? Clearly it was a matter between a husband and wife, and Juliana knew well that in marital situations, the husband had all the rights. Winifred was obviously embarrassed about Juliana’s having seen the bruises, and Juliana hated to add to her humiliation by quizzing her about them. But neither could she just stand by.
“Winnie,” she said softly. “Are you all right? Can I do anything to help you?”
Winifred glanced at her, her cheeks still flaming. “What? Why, I am fine.”
“But your bruises…”
“Oh, those…” Winifred let out a forced chuckle. “That’s nothing. I fear I am terribly clumsy. I am forever tripping over something or stumbling….”
“But those look like—”
“Oh, yes!” Again the nervous laughter came. “I almost fell, and Crandall had to grab me around the arm to keep me from tumbling. I bruise so easily—it is quite horrid-looking, isn’t it?”
“Yes, it is,” Juliana agreed, certain the girl was lying, but uncertain what she could do, with Winifred maintaining that Crandall had been helping her rather than hurting her. “You know, if you are, um, if you need help, you could talk to me about it. Nicholas would—”
“Oh, no!” Winifred looked alarmed. “Pray do not tell Lord Barre about it. I am just…often very foolish. But—there is no reason to disturb Lord Barre.”
Juliana saw a very good reason to tell him. However, Winifred’s anxious, pleading look kept her from acting on her suspicions. It was clear that Winifred would only repeat her patently false story to Nicholas, denying that Crandall had meant to hurt her, and while she felt certain that Nicholas would believe her no more than she herself had, there was no way they could prove that Winifred had not gotten the bruises as she had said.
Nicholas, however, would feel compelled to speak to Crandall about it, and, given the bad blood that already lay between them, Juliana had no desire to add any more reason for animosity. Besides, if Nicholas remonstrated with Crandall about his roughness with his wife, Juliana felt sure that Crandall would take his resulting anger out on the very woman whom she was trying to protect. And if Crandall and Nicholas got into such a fight that Nicholas threw him out of the house, then Winifred would be homeless and, worse, all alone with the man, who would doubtless blame her for his problems.
So, with a sigh, Juliana found herself, against her better judgment, nodding and saying, “All right. I won’t tell Nicholas…for now.”
She kept an eye on Winifred thereafter, however, looking for any further signs that Crandall might have hit her.
Crandall continued, of course, to behave in an obnoxious manner. He was rude to everyone, including his mother, and more than once Juliana saw Lilith’s mouth tighten with annoyance or disgust at his behavior, something she had not been accustomed to seeing when she had lived with the Barres years ago.
There was clearly tension between Crandall and his sister, as well. He often made comments to Seraphina in a sly manner, his eyes alight with mischief. Juliana did not understand what he meant by them, but it was clear that Seraphina did, for her eyes would flash, and she would cast him a disgusted look or turn away without speaking.
Nor were his relations any better with Seraphina’s husband. Sir Herbert seemed to avoid Crandall whenever possible, and when he was forced to be around him, as during a meal, Juliana noticed that he rarely spoke to him. Bizarrely enough, Sir Herbert was the only person to whom Crandall ever seemed to act in a civil manner.
Juliana understood both men’s behavior better one day when she overheard them talking. She had stolen a few minutes away from the wedding preparations, and, eager to be alone for a little while, she had gone to a recessed window seat in the long gallery. There, armed with a book and an apple, she had settled down with her legs curled up under her, hidden from sight.
After a few minutes, she heard the sounds of voices and, afraid that they might belong to someone looking for her, had scooted back and pulled one side of the draperies a little farther forward so that she was
completely hidden.
But as the voices grew closer, she realized that they belonged to two men conversing in hushed but intense tones.
“I would pay it back, I swear,” were the first words she was able to make out, followed by a deeper voice whose words she could not quite distinguish.
“But you don’t understand,” the first voice went on, and she was able to recognize it now as Crandall’s. “Sir Herbert, I must have the money. I’m in desperate straits.”
“No, you don’t understand,” came Sir Herbert’s unbending reply. “It doesn’t matter to me how desperate your straits are. I am through lending you money.”
“I will pay it back. Charge me whatever interest you wish.”
“I’m not a demmed moneylender,” Sir Herbert protested. “I don’t want your interest.”
The two men seemed to have come to a stop only a few feet from where Juliana sat hidden. She squeezed as tightly into the corner behind the curtain as she could, wishing she could simply disappear. She could not pop out from the window seat now; they would know she had overheard at least part of what they had said, and it would be an embarrassing situation. But it would be even worse if they glanced in and saw her hiding there. She closed her eyes, silently urging them to pass on by.
“I owe so much money. I cannot repay even a third of it.”
“You would not be in this situation if you did not throw your money away in gambling hells,” Sir Herbert responded. “I have lent you money time and again, and every time you say the same thing. You will pay me back. You will stop gambling. You will change. But you never do.”
“I will this time.” Desperation turned Crandall’s voice into a whine. “You’ll see. But you have to give me a chance. It isn’t just the moneylenders. I’ve given my chit to several gentlemen. If I don’t repay them, my name will be ruined.”