by Candace Camp
Juliana left Seraphina’s room, thinking how horrible it would be to live in fear as the other woman did, lying to her husband, always worrying that he would find out. How could Seraphina be happy in her marriage when she always had to pretend? The two of them could not be close with such a secret between them.
But that night, as Juliana lay in bed alone, awake, waiting, hoping for the sound of Nicholas opening the door into her room, she had to wonder whether she was not living just as big a lie as Seraphina. She was pretending to be a wife, yet she spent her nights alone. She should never have agreed to this empty form of marriage. And she could not help but ask herself how she was going to get through the rest of her life this way.
Tears welled up in her eyes and seeped out the corners, trailing down the sides of her face. Juliana turned her face into her pillow. She had lied, she thought, not only to her husband but to herself, pretending that a friendship with Nicholas was all she wanted.
The truth was, she knew, that she loved Nicholas. She had loved him from the time she was a child. All through the years of his absence, that love had lain dormant inside her, and it had taken only his return to breathe life back into it. She had tried to deny it, to pretend that what she felt for him was the love of a friend, but with every day that passed, she realized that what she felt for him was the kind of love that bound a man and a woman together throughout life, founded on the bedrock of their past, and flowering into something rich and deep and vibrant.
In her heart she was his wife; he was the only man whom she would ever love. But she wanted more. She wanted to be the center of his life as he was the center of hers. She wanted to join herself to him in every way. She wanted to know his touch, his kiss, the passion that she knew could flare between them.
But like a dark cloud hovering over her marriage was the knowledge that Nicholas did not feel the same. He professed for her the affection of a friend; he talked of his gratitude to her, and his pledge long ago to come back and rescue her. But he did not talk of love and desire. The fact was that he did not believe he was capable of love.
Juliana was certain that he was. What chilled her heart was the insidious thought that perhaps he was simply not capable of love with her.
THE NEXT MORNING Juliana and Nicholas rode to the village to visit her mother’s housekeeper. It was a glorious day, soft and warm, one of the last dying days of summer that made it seem as if autumn would never come. Juliana had awakened with a headache, a product, she knew, of having cried herself to sleep the night before, but outside in the sun and gentle breeze, with Nicholas by her side, she found that her headache vanished along with her cares.
They rode along in their companionable way. She wondered how it was possible to be so comfortable with him and yet to be in a low simmer of excitement all the while, just from being with him.
He smiled at her, and she felt almost giddy. His laugh filled her with happiness and sent her searching her brain for something else witty to say to bring that laugh again. And when he reached up and put his hand around her waist to help her down from her horse, a tingling ran all through her.
Mrs. Cooper greeted them at the door, all smiles, and invited them in, offering to get them tea.
“Oh, no, please, we cannot stay long today,” Juliana told the woman. “I just—there was something I wanted to ask you about my mother.”
“Why, of course, dear. Come in, come in.” She directed them toward the grouping of chairs in her tiny parlor. “What is it you wish to know?”
Juliana hesitated, unsure how to begin the conversation, now that she was facing the woman.
The older woman looked at her with kindly expectation.
Juliana had the feeling that what she was about to ask would shatter this woman’s calm. “Mrs. Barre, Lilith Barre, told me yesterday—well, she said that my mother and Trenton Barre, um…”
She did not have to finish the sentence, for Mrs. Cooper’s eyes flashed, and she almost snarled, “Mrs. Barre! That woman! Your mother was always polite to her, no matter how wickedly that woman treated her.”
Tears came into Mrs. Cooper’s eyes, and she dabbed them away, saying, “No matter how Mrs. Barre acted, how she snubbed her and accused her, Mrs. Holcott never answered her in kind.”
“Then Lilith talked to my mother about her suspicions?”
“If you can call it talking. She ranted and raved at her, as if any of it was Mrs. Holcott’s fault. As if she was to blame for the abominable way that man treated her.”
“Trenton?” Nicholas asked, speaking for the first time. “My uncle?”
“Yes!” Mrs. Cooper fairly spat out the word, and her face looked as if the taste of it was sour in her mouth. “He was evil. Evil. When I think of how he used Mrs. Holcott, how he took her sweetness and—”
“Mrs. Cooper,” Juliana said, leaning forward and taking the woman’s hand. “Are you saying that he…that Trenton forced my mother?”
The housekeeper’s face hardened, and her eyes were bright and cold. “Not physically, mayhap, but he forced her nonetheless. Your mother didn’t want anything to do with him, but she knew she had to…to accommodate him if she wanted to continue to live there. She had to do it to save you from a life of poverty.”
“She did have an affair with Trenton?” Juliana asked.
Mrs. Cooper nodded, but she grasped Juliana’s hand tightly, pleading with her, “Don’t blame your mother, child. She was a good woman. She was only doing what she had to. She was scared of that man. She dreaded his visits. She hated his touch. There was no other man for her but your father. But if she did not give in to Barre, she would have found herself out on the street, with no way to support you and herself. She was terrified of what would happen to you, you see. There was nothing she could do, especially with having a child, except to take in sewing or even laundry.”
Juliana knew that what the woman was saying was the truth. Prospects would have been bleak for a penniless widow with a child. Such jobs as Juliana herself had held would not have been available to someone who would be bringing a child with her. Even any sort of servant’s position would have been unattainable. Juliana remembered how frightened her mother had been in the weeks after her father died, how she had paced the floor and cried, how relieved she had been when Trenton Barre arrived.
She recalled the way her mother had cried and held her, telling her, “We’ve been saved, darling.” Juliana wondered if her mother had known then the price that Trenton Barre would demand for offering them shelter…or if that was something she had found out only after they had moved into the cottage on the estate.
“Oh, my God,” Juliana breathed, her hands coming up to her face.
“She did it all for you,” Mrs. Cooper went on. “Don’t think ill of her, child.”
“Of course not,” Nicholas assured Mrs. Cooper grimly. “It is my uncle who was at fault. We are well aware of that.” He curled his arm around Juliana’s shoulders, saying to Mrs. Cooper, “Thank you for telling us. Juliana needed to know. We must take our leave now.”
The housekeeper was still frowning worriedly as Nicholas turned and swept Juliana from the room. She did not protest, only went with him numbly. He gave her a hand up onto her horse, then mounted as well, and they started back toward Lychwood Hall.
It seemed to Juliana that the day, which had started out so beautiful and bright, was now dull. Her head felt fuzzy, and it was difficult to think. She wanted to sob, but she swallowed hard and clamped down on her emotions, promising herself that she would not cry until she was alone again.
But as they neared the Hall, Nicholas urged his horse down a lesser-used path. Juliana followed listlessly, her mind still slowly trying to come to terms with what she had learned about her mother. It took her a moment to realize that Nicholas was heading now toward the cottage where she had lived as a child.
Juliana stiffened, about to cry out that she did not want to go there, but at that moment they passed through a copse of trees, and there befor
e them was the small house where she had lived. It was achingly familiar. She had sat in that large tree with the low branches and read her books, and there, in the garden behind the cottage, she had played with her dolls. And there was the window to her bedroom, where she had stood innumerable times looking out.
She realized that far from being unable to bear to see it, this place was exactly where she wanted to be right now. They sat for a moment, looking around them. The bushes and trees had grown up around the small house, and its windows were shuttered against the elements. It looked closed and abandoned, and though Juliana had never thought she liked the place, it made her heart sad to see it looking so.
“I should have sent someone here to see about the cottage,” Nicholas said quietly. “It should not look like this. I will have the yard trimmed and the house cleaned.”
Juliana smiled at him faintly. “Thank you. It isn’t, I suppose, very useful.”
“There is no need for it to be useful,” Nicholas replied quickly. “It is dear to me.”
Juliana glanced at him, a little surprised.
He saw her gaze and said, “It is where I escaped to from that huge, cold house. It was where you were, and I would come here to see you. Mrs. Cooper always had a jar of cookies, and she would press a plate of them on me. And your mother was kind. She would smile and tell me I was growing taller every day. That is what my mother used to say.”
“Oh, Nicholas!” Impulsively Juliana reached out and took Nicholas’s hand. “I didn’t know….”
He kept his hand around hers as he went on. “It sounds foolish, I suppose, but it seemed to me to be a refuge. A place of happiness.”
“I wish it had been so for her,” Juliana said quietly.
He turned to her. “I’m sorry.”
Juliana shook her head. “You needn’t apologize. It is not your fault. He tainted all our lives. Surely even Crandall would have turned out a better person if he had not had Trenton for a father.”
They dismounted, and Nicholas tied their horses to one of the trees. The door stuck, and he had to put his shoulder to it to open it.
Inside, there was a faint smell of must. The furniture was covered with sheets, humped shapes in the dark room. Nicholas strode over and opened the curtains and windows, unlatching and pushing out the shutters to let in light and air.
They walked slowly through the house, opening a window here and there. Juliana trailed her fingers along the wallpaper in the hall, thinking about her childhood.
“I always thought she was unhappy because my father had died…that all those years she was mourning him.”
“No doubt she did mourn him.”
“Yes, but I realize now how unhappy her life must have been. I knew she disliked Trenton, even though she made me smile and be polite. I could feel the bite of her fingers on my shoulders when she would bring me in to curtsey to him. It must have been so awful for her…and I used to be mad at her because she wouldn’t be happy!”
Tears gushed into her eyes, and Juliana could not hold them back now. She brought her hands up to her eyes, crying and struggling not to. “She did it all for me! She enslaved herself so that I could have a nice place to live, and pretty clothes and an education. And I resented the fact that she didn’t laugh and play with me!”
“She loved you.” Nicholas reached out and pulled her into his arms, cradling her against his chest. “She did the best she could for you. What she wanted was your happiness, and I know she wouldn’t want you to blame yourself.”
His hands stroked her back comfortingly, and Juliana buried her face in his chest, giving herself up to her tears. She cried for her mother and the sacrifices she had made, and she cried for the child she had been, always a little lonely and wishing for the mother Diana had been before her father died.
Gradually her tears subsided, but still she stayed in his arms, enjoying the warmth and safety of that strong circle. She felt Nicholas’s lips brush against her hair; she felt the slow circling of his hand over her back.
And something stirred within her. A deep sensual longing, the ache that yearned for him. She flushed a little with embarrassment that she should feel the stirrings of desire when all Nicholas had done was offer her comfort, that she should want him even on the heels of her sorrow for her mother. But she could neither deny nor expel the heat that curled in her loins, tender and throbbing. And she knew that the ache was not only physical but an emptiness in her very heart, as well.
Without thinking, she rubbed her cheek against his chest, and his hand stopped its movement. For a moment they were frozen, suspended and uncertain. Juliana could hear the soft rasp of Nicholas’s breath, feel the thud of his heart beneath her cheek.
Then, slowly, Juliana moved back a little, turning her face up to look at him. The desire she saw in his face took her breath away. He hungered for her as she hungered for him. The only wrong thing, Juliana thought, would be to deny what they both felt.
Going up on the balls of her feet, she lifted her lips to his.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
NICHOLAS’S ARMS WENT around her fiercely, pulling her up and into his hard body, and his lips sank onto hers. Juliana felt as if she were sliding down, down, into a dark abyss of pleasure, falling without fear. Her body surged with heat, enveloped by his answering warmth.
His hands fumbled at her hair, pulling the pins from it and sending it tumbling down in a shining mass. He plunged his fingers into the silken strands, holding her head as his mouth plundered hers. Juliana slid her arms around his neck, clinging to him fiercely, and kissed him back. Eagerly their bodies pressed against each other, seeking the release they both desired.
Caressing each other and tugging haphazardly at their clothes, they kissed, turning and twisting in a dance of desire. Her riding jacket wound up tossed on a chair, his coat on the floor. He pulled her mannishly-cut shirt from the skirt of her riding habit, but the small round buttons foiled his fingers, until finally she reached up and unfastened them for him.
He watched her with heavy-lidded eyes as she unbuttoned the shirt, and pulled it back and off her shoulders, letting it slide down her arms and off onto the floor. Her breasts swelled up above the top of her white chemise, barely restrained by the ribbon-tied neckline.
Nicholas took one end of the blue ribbon and pulled it gently, and the bow slid open, the sides of the cotton chemise falling apart. One by one he undid the bows the rest of the way down the front of the feminine undergarment, his eyes intently following the path of his fingers.
He looked back up into her eyes then, and Juliana saw the fierce glint of desire in their darkness, the hunger that burned hotter than any fire.
“I have lain awake every night thinking about this,” he whispered hoarsely. “I have called myself ten times a fool for ever suggesting that we play this chaste charade.”
Juliana let out a breathless little laugh. “So have I.”
He chuckled then, and bent to kiss her hard and quick, before he pulled back and opened the sides of her chemise. Softly his hands slid across her chest as he pushed the material aside. He ran his hands down her arms, shoving the garment off and letting it join their other garments on the floor.
His eyes lingered caressingly on her breasts for a moment before he lightly brushed his fingers over the soft white orbs. Her nipples tightened in response, growing harder with each delicate movement of his fingers. He cupped her breasts in his hands, his thumbs stroking over her nipples until her every fiber was thrumming with pleasure.
Juliana let out a sob of breath. She wanted more, wanted to feel everything it was possible to feel, need throbbing deep within her.
Bending down, he kissed the quivering top of each breast, his lips moving over her flesh with exquisite tenderness, tasting and arousing with every movement. Juliana’s knees trembled so that she feared she might fall, but then his arm went around her back, hard as iron, holding her up, as he lifted her up and his mouth settled on her nipple.
A chord of s
ensation so bright with pleasure that it was almost pain vibrated through her, sending moisture pooling between her legs. A pulse throbbed there with every pull of his mouth, and Juliana dug her fingers into his shoulders, unable to hold back a moan.
She wanted him to go on forever, and at the same time she wanted him to pull the rest of her clothes from her and send them both racing to the bright pleasure at the end. She wanted everything at once, her feelings wildly chaotic.
Her fingers went to the buttons of his shirt, shakily making her way down the front, and she slid her hands beneath the cloth. She explored the skin of his chest, delighting in the varying textures, finding and caressing the flat masculine nipples, and smiling at the soft noise of pleasure he made when she did so.
Hastily he straightened and pulled his shirt off, and Juliana seized the opportunity to lean forward and place her lips against his chest. He went still, hardly daring to move as she made her tentative way across his skin, kissing, her tongue creeping out to taste or to flick across his nipple. Breathing her name, he clutched a fistsful of her hair, his fingers clenching in the silken mass as her mouth explored him.
At last, when he felt as if he might explode, he pulled away from her, jerking off his boots and skinning out of his breeches. As he did so, Juliana quickly undressed, too eager now to be embarrassed or shy. She looked at his long, lean body, so hard and masculine, and desire shivered through her. She had never seen a man naked before, but in Nicholas she saw a stark, raw beauty of muscle and bone.
“You are beautiful,” he murmured, and pulled her into his arms again, kissing her as if he could never get enough of the taste of her.
Juliana melted against him, luxuriating in the feel of his hands moving over her body, finding and exploring the soft, feminine secrets of her flesh. His hand slipped between her legs, separating and caressing, and she let out a groan, moving against him in response.