New York Times Bestselling Author
KAREN ROBARDS
“INCOMPARABLE.”
Affaire de Coeur”
“IN THE TOP RANK OF ROMANCE WRITERS.”
Louisville Courier-Journal
“HER PARTICULAR BRAND OF ROMANCE IS FASCINATING.”
Chicago Sun-Times
“ROBARDS HAS A KNACK FOR TELLING A STORY.”
Knoxville News-Sentinel
“[ROBARDS] TURNS ROMANCE INSIDE OUT.… SHE HAS THE ELEMENTS OF GOOD WRITING DOWN.”
Cincinnati Post
“ROMANCE–WITH A DIFFERENCE.… [ROBARDS] CREATES A FUN SUMMER READ.”
Orlando Sentinel
“KAREN ROBARDS IS ONE TERRIFIC STORYTELLER.”
Chicago Tribune
Also by Karen Robards
AMANDA ROSE
DARK OF THE MOON
DARK TORMENT
DESIRE IN THE SUN
GREEN EYES
LOVING JULIA
MORNING SONG
NIGHT MAGIC
TIGER’S EYE
TO LOVE A MAN
WILD ORCHIDS
Green Eyes
KAREN
ROBARDS
GREEN EYES
All Rights Reserved © 1991 by Karen Robards
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher.
Published by Karen Robards
Originally published by Avon Books
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
To Christopher Scott–
Welcome to the world, April 7, 1990! And as always. With love to Doug and Peter.
Table of Contents
I
II
III
IV
V
VI
VII
VIII
IX
X
XI
XII
XIII
XIV
XV
XVI
XVII
XVIII
XIX
XX
XXI
XXII
XXIII
XXIV
XXV
XXVI
XXVII
XXVIII
XXIX
XXX
XXXI
XXXII
XXXIII
XXXIV
XXXV
XXXVI
XXXVII
XXXVIII
XXXIX
XL
XLI
XLII
XLIII
XLIV
XLV
XLVI
XLVII
XLVIII
XLIX
L
LI
LII
LIII
LIV
Epilogue
About the Author
Connect with Karen Robards Online
Sample Chapter from Loving Julia
I
The choice was a simple one, Anna Traverne reflected dismally: agree to become Graham’s mistress, or starve.
If she had only herself to consider, she would choose starvation with scarcely any hesitation, but there was Chelsea, too. In the end Anna knew that mother love would prove stronger than pride, morality, or physical revulsion. She simply could not allow her five-year-old daughter to be thrown with her into a cold and uncaring world when it was within her power to prevent it.
But the idea of lying with her brother-in-law, of suffering his hands on her person and his body invading hers, made her physically sick.
“Dear God, please help me find some way out of this mess.” As a clergyman’s daughter, she naturally turned to prayer when she was desperate, but Anna uttered this one without much hope. Lately God hadn’t seemed particularly interested in listening to so insignificant a being as herself, so the whisper was more an automatic response to her upbringing than a heartfelt plea for divine intervention. She had prayed so much and so hard during the last harrowing hours of her husband’s life that she now seemed to be incapable of sincere prayer. She had broken down completely at his funeral. Since then, her emotions had been muted. She had not felt anything—not hatred, or fear, or love, or even grief—very intensely. It was as if a cold gray fog had fallen over her life.
Six months now she had been a widow and the last three of those, at Graham’s insistence had been spent in England. From the moment she had first set foot again in Gordon Hall, Graham had been after her. At first he’d been subtle, and she’d hoped she was mistaking the motivation behind his overly enthusiastic kisses and squeezes. After all, she was the new widow of his younger brother, his only sibling. Perhaps lavishing caresses on his brother’s relic was how he dealt with his grief. But even as she had tried to convince herself of that, Anna had suspected differently. She’d known Graham too long, and too well, to truly believe it.
Graham had wanted her from the time the three of them were children together. Wanted her, not loved her. Paul had loved her, despite the fact that she was only the daughter of the local vicar, when he and Graham were the sons of the rich and powerful Lord Ridley. And she had loved Paul in return. They were the same age, their birthdays only one month apart, and from childhood he had been her dearest friend. Marriage had only slightly altered their relationship. Theirs had been a happy union, full of mutual affection and respect, and devoid of surprises on either side, so well had they known each other. Anna had fully expected it to endure, and ripen, over the course of their natural lives. Then, at the unbelievably young age of twenty-four, Paul had died. With his death her life, and Chelsea’s, had shattered like fine glass.
Unlike the bull-like Graham, Paul had been slender, with a pale complexion and flaxen hair so like Anna’s own that strangers had sometimes mistaken them for brother and sister instead of husband and wife. But for all his appearance of fragility, Paul had always seemed perfectly healthy. Although, as Anna’s father had often said, appearances could be deceptive. After Paul’s death, the doctor had told her he must have always had a weak heart.
If only she had known! If they had known! Then they would never have embarked on their wild adventure, would never have thumbed their noses at his family and the world they had known and set off for Ceylon.
They had made a runaway match of it. Their act of defiance had left Paul’s autocratic father and brother screaming with outrage, though for very different reasons. After the wedding, old Lord Ridley had objected because Anna, as a mere clergyman’s daughter, was not a fit wife for his son. Graham had been angry because even then he had wanted Anna for himself. Oh, not to wed, of course—Graham had too high an opinion of himself for that—but to bed. The very idea had sickened Anna then just as it sickened her now. Paul’s father had cast him off, and the newlyweds had found themselves almost completely without funds. Their sole resources had been a small legacy left by Paul’s long-deceased mother and a tea plantation on the island of Ceylon that had been his mother’s girlhood home.
Anna and Paul had been young and high-spirited, and so in love that they hadn’t cared. They would take up tea planting and make their own way. It had seemed a marvelous adventure at first. The very strangeness of her new home had entranced Anna. But the hot, steamy climate of Ceylon had never agreed with Paul. After Chelsea’s birth, he had fallen prey to a succession of fevers that had left him thin and paler than ever, and h
ad weakened his already less than robust heart. At least, so had said the doctor, finally summoned against Paul’s wishes by Anna when he had been stricken yet again with one of the everlasting tropical illnesses that continually plagued him. That particular fever, generally mild, should not have killed him—but it had.
“Why didn’t we come back to England as soon as we saw the climate didn’t agree with him?” Guilt served no purpose, Anna knew, even as she muttered the agonizing thought aloud. But the knowledge that Paul would still be alive had he never married her and as a consequence been forced to leave his home was always there, lurking on the edge of her consciousness. In a way, she had killed him, she and his unforgiving martinet of a father.…
Anna shivered as a waft of cold air unexpectedly reached her, and pulled the shawl that covered her night rail closer about her neck. She was huddled in a big leather wing chair in front of the tiny fire she had built in the little-used library, and until that icy finger had touched her she had been toasty warm. Where could the draft have come from? She had taken good care to close the door from the hall, and the windows of the second-story room were shut tight, their dusty velvet hangings drawn.
“Paul?” Even as she breathed it, his name no louder than a soft exhalation of her breath, she knew the very notion was absurd. But ridiculously, she allowed herself a moment’s fantasy that the chilling touch might presage a visit by Paul’s ghost. She had felt so terribly alone since his death that she would welcome even his shade. What a relief it would be to lay her burdens on his shoulders, even if for no more than a minute or two! She was so very tired, so close to despair, and there was no one in the world who cared. Her own family was dead, and of Paul’s only Graham was left. Lord Ridley had died a scant month before his younger son. As for Graham—Anna thought for what must have been the hundredth time that she would almost have been better off with no one at all to turn to. When he had offered to let her and Chelsea make their home with him, she should have known better than to trust him. But Paul’s death had left her and Chelsea destitute; by the terms of Paul’s mother’s will, even the plantation had reverted to Graham upon his younger brother’s death. When Graham had offered them a home, Anna had been grateful, even eager to return to England for Chelsea’s sake. Of course, then she had not known the price she would be expected to pay.
Even before she had left with Paul, Graham had clearly noticed that the little girl who had run tame at Gordon Hall had grown into a desirable young woman. In that last year before she became Paul’s bride, Graham had tried by fair means and foul to lure her into his bed. Why should she have expected the passing of six years to have changed him? The only difference she found at Gordon Hall upon her return was that old Lord Ridley was dead, which just gave Graham, who was made in the old lord’s insufferable image, that much more power.
A minute passed, two, and no shade appeared, as of course Anna had known it would not. Her spine sagged with disappointment, and her head fell back to rest against the smooth leather. She was alone. There was no one to help or advise her, no one to save her from what she already knew was inevitable. Though she might delay it, as she had tonight by hiding, there was no real salvation; sooner or later she would be forced to accede to Graham’s demands.
“I can’t! I just can’t.”
Tears puddled in her eyes. Closing them tightly in what she knew would be a futile defense, she pulled her knees up to her chin inside the voluminous white nightdress she wore and wrapped her arms around her legs. Crying would serve no purpose, she scolded herself. Certainly it would not bring back Paul. If tears could accomplish that, he would have been resurrected long since.
What sounded remarkably like a soft footstep behind her chair caused Anna’s eyes to open. Paul? The thought popped into her mind again. But no, of course not! A ghost would shimmer and float, not walk, across the creaky plank floor.
If there was a presence in the room with her, and her every instinct told her that there was, it was assuredly not a ghost. What then—or more properly, who?
At the thought of being discovered by Graham, Anna shuddered, and instinctively she made herself as small as she could. It was possible that, in the gloom of the library, with her chair facing the fire while its tall back was presented to the rest of the room, she might contrive to pass unnoticed. Possible, but not likely, at least not if the trespasser were Graham. The only reason for his presence in the library at such an hour would be that he was looking for her, Anna had fled her room as soon as the house had grown quiet for the night to avoid him should he decide to come seeking her. Locked doors were useless in keeping him out, as she had learned to her dismay: Graham possessed a key to her chamber. Indeed, just the night before she had awakened to find him climbing into her bed. Only her strenuous physical objections, and last desperate threat to scream and awaken his wife, had caused him to leave her, finally, relatively untouched.
But he had not left without telling her that she would share his bed—or leave his house forthwith.
Tonight she had feared he meant to put the matter to the test. Although in her heart she knew the conclusion was foregone, she could not bring herself to surrender to the hideous inevitable—yet. Miracles happened every day, as her gentle father had reminded her until the moment of his death. Anna wasn’t greedy; all she asked for was a small miracle. Just enough of one to save her from Graham and provide for her and Chelsea. Surely that wasn’t too much to ask of a God who had already taken from her almost more than she could bear.
There was another footstep, as quiet as the first. Anna was just registering that it didn’t sound like Graham’s deliberate tread when, out of the corner of her eye, she glimpsed a man. A tall man in a billowing black cloak who glided past her chair almost as silently as would have the shade he assuredly was not.
Anna froze, her breath suspended as her eyes locked on him. She had never seen the man before in her life!
He was tall, with black hair. The cloak made him seem massive as it rippled behind him, drawn, Anna saw, by the draft from the partly open door that led into the hall. The door that she had taken such care to close earlier. That, then, explained the draft. But nothing could explain the presence of this man. There were no houseguests at Gordon Hall just at present. A house party was planned for this, the Christmas of 1832, a little more than a fortnight away, but none of the guests would arrive for several days yet. And, anyway, this man was certainly not one of Graham’s cronies, who tended to be as thick-headed and dandified as he was himself.
Nor, she was quite certain, was he a servant, which left only one breath-stopping possibility: dear Lord in heaven, she was faced with a housebreaker!
Screaming was the most immediate course of action that occurred to her, but it had two drawbacks: first, the criminal was far closer to her than any help she could summon, and would certainly be upon her in an instant if she disclosed her presence, of which he was obviously unaware. Second, a scream would certainly bring Graham along with the rest of the household. Under the circumstances, she would almost rather deal with the housebreaker than with her brother-in-law.
Almost.
Anna only hoped that the housebreaker was not a murderous sort. Huddling in her chair, her eyes never leaving him, she scarcely dared to breathe.
II
He was lifting books off the shelves that flanked the fireplace, placing them in neat piles on the desk nearby. Clearly he had no inkling that he was being observed. Unmoving, her arms clasped so tightly around her knees that the circulation to her legs was in danger of being cut off, Anna watched as he pressed the bare wood of the wall behind the shelves where the books had been. It took him several tries, but finally there was a thud and then a creak. To Anna’s amazement, a small panel slid open where only seconds before had been a wall of seemingly solid walnut planks. Anna’s eyes widened. She’d played freely at Gordon Hall for most of her life, and she’d had no inkling that such a hidey-hole existed.
How had the housebreaker known?
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He thrust both hands into the hole, and withdrew them holding a small leather case. Although Anna couldn’t see his face, his bearing radiated satisfaction. Turning, he set the case on the desk, opened it, and stared down at the contents. There was an air almost of reverence about him as he stood there, head bowed, looking at the case’s contents, which were hidden from Anna. Frowning, she tried to guess what the case could contain. Not the Traverne jewels, which were most lately the possessions of Graham’s wife, Barbara. They were safely locked away in Barbara’s bedroom in the same spot where they had been kept secured for generations.
What then was this? Something small enough to fit into a case no larger than a cigar box, secret enough to be secured in a hidey-hole that she had had no inkling existed, and valuable enough to attract the attention of an obviously well-informed housebreaker. What?
Anna watched, fascination momentarily making her forget about being afraid, as the man lifted a flat velvet envelope from the case, opened the flap top, and peered inside. Whatever he saw must have pleased him, because he was smiling as he set the pouch on the desk, folding back the sides and feeling whatever lay within to lift it in his hand. He seemed almost to gloat as he turned slightly toward the fire to examine his prize more closely, thus affording her the first glimpse of both the object and his face.
Anna’s first thought was that he looked like a gypsy. His skin was swarthy, the thick slashes of his eyebrows as inky black as his hair, which was secured by a thin black ribbon at his nape. His features were boldly masculine, looking more as if they’d been hewn from teak with an axe than delicately sculpted from fine marble as Paul’s had. He was a big man, massive of shoulder, broad of chest, tall. Although it was too dark in the library to be absolutely sure, she thought he looked almost dangerously handsome in a wild, rough way.
But handsome is as handsome does, as her father the vicar had often said, and this man was a thief. It was more than possible that, if he discovered her, he might do her bodily harm. That thought brought Anna back to a precise awareness of the precariousness of her position. She stayed perfectly still as he lifted his hand so that whatever he held might catch the light from the fire. The faint orange glow revealed that the objects were a brilliant green—and Anna had to stifle a gasp as she realized just what he held: the Queen’s emeralds!
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