Jack bounced off the washstand, came back with a bullish roar, swinging his fist in a low blow to the major’s stomach. Why stick to gentlemen’s rules, when all he wanted was to finish this farce? And, bloody hell, he wasn’t a gentleman anyway.
Nicholas tripped on the remains of the desk chair and tipped over backward. Straight into the tub of now chilly water. His head struck the back of the hip bath with a thunk and he lay still, dazed and winded, one leg dangling over the end of the tub, the other drooping over the side at a drunken angle.
“Oh, my God,” panted Jack softly. “I’m sorry, Jule. The devil’s in it now.”
“Out!” Julia ordered. “Now, Jack. This minute!”
“But…” Jack bent over Nicholas, feeling for his pulse.
“Just get out,” Julia said, tugging at his arm. “Before you do any more damage.”
Nicholas’ eyes were partially open, seemingly fixed on the toe of his boot where it hung to one side of the tub. Julia gave Jack a shove, hissing, “I’ll be all right. Just get out. Now!”
Jack scanned the shambles of the room, lingering on Nicholas, who was immersed to his neck in cold water. “But I can’t just leave. How will you get him out?”
“He’ll get himself out,” she snapped. “Can’t you see he’s merely sulking? A cold bath has a very salutary effect on a temper tantrum. “For God’s sake, Jack, go!”
Reluctantly, Jack backed toward the stairs, murmuring apologies. Muttering a few choice bits of Anglo-Saxon, Jack picked up the coat he had left on the railing and descended the stairs. When almost at the bottom, his irrepressible spirits got the better of him. He called back up the stairs, “Better bolt the outside door, my Jule. I doubt you want any more visitors tonight.”
After a grimace of annoyance, Julia did just that. If she had not left the room wide open so Nicholas could come to her by either door, she might have been spared this nasty little debacle. When she came back up the narrow stairs from the storeroom below, Nicholas, eyes closed, was still sprawled in the hip bath almost exactly as she had left him. Before tackling her rather large, wet and angry problem, Julia threw the bolt on the door to the upper hallway. Safe at last. Or as safe as she could be with a husband with ample cause to be furious.
Fortunately, the not-so-secret room was provided with a generous supply of towels. After removing two from the linen cupboard, Julia righted the ladder-back chair, stirred the coals with the poker, blew on them with the bellows, then added wood until the fire was once again giving off a blazing warmth. Finding nothing more to add to her procrastination, she slowly turned back to the hip bath.
Nicholas eyed her balefully. “Perhaps you’d care to iron your clothes and cook a midnight supper before getting me out of this damn thing?” he inquired in the purring voice that always sent shivers up her spine.
“I don’t doubt you’re quite capable of getting out on your own if you’d a mind to,” Julia retorted. “But you know as well as I that you’re better off where you are until the fire’s made up.”
“Since a cold bath is merely my third sobering incident of the night, I daresay I’ll not die of it,” Nicholas grumbled.
“Third?”
Nicholas extended a dripping hand. “Get me out of here, my girl. Then we’ll talk.”
No dainty Botticelli Venus on the half-shell, Nicholas sloshed water in every direction as he and his soaking wet clothing emerged. Julia jumped back as her silk robe plastered itself to her body. Water ran over the wooden floor and across the hearth. The fire hissed as water turned to steam.
Ignoring the sudden chill of wet silk, Julia sat her husband down on the ladder-back chair and helped him peel off his thoroughly soaked jacket and shirt. Flickering candlelight shone on his scars. Julia closed her eyes a moment before thrusting a towel at him. The night of the battle, the night they were married, came back in all its horror. Surely they had earned the right to hope for something better.
Abruptly, Julia knelt and went to work on her husband’s boots which, fortunately, had not gotten wet. Since years of following the drum had given her a good deal of experience with gentlemen’s boots, she had them off with minimal effort. Julia looked up to discover a gleam of amusement in her husband’s gray eyes as he contemplated her consternation over what must come next.
Slowly, Nicholas stood up. His head might be developing a lump and as nasty a headache as he could recall, not to mention his body’s multitude of bruises but he was actually beginning to enjoy himself. He started to peel off the skintight knit pantaloons he had worn in another lifetime when he had set out that afternoon to call on Violante. The pantaloons were reluctant, as was the equally skintight garment beneath. Several times he looked to his wife for assistance but she stood there like a lump and merely glared at him. Nicholas’ only aid was the satisfaction of some muttered barracks room language. When he stood before his wife naked but for his stockings, he sat down on the chair, picked up the second towel which had been warming before the fire and handed it to her. “Your turn,” he growled.
Julia’s eyes widened. “Don’t be ridiculous,” she gulped.
Nicholas shut his eyes and leaned against the unyielding back of the chair. “It’s been one hell of day, my girl. I’m not lying when I tell you that I doubt I could have stood up another minute. Just finish the job like a good girl and get me to bed.”
Major Tarleton decreeing a drumhead punishment for her sins.
Julia ducked her head and, heart pounding, peeled off his knit stockings, no doubt a product of his discontented mill workers in Nottingham. Kneeling at Nicholas’ feet, she dried each toe with elaborate care, her eyes never raised above his ankles as she sought with numbed mind for some distraction from the task at hand. With a rush of relief she recalled his earlier promise.
“Will you tell me what you meant by three sobering incidents?” Julia inquired.
Nicholas, thoroughly enjoying his wife’s inability to venture above his ankles, was willing enough. “I met Avery Dunstan this afternoon. I fear we overdid our reunion,” he admitted, continuing with a brief version of being set on by the mob at the bonfire.
As Nicholas spoke of scythes, pitchforks and clubs, Julia’s shocked gaze flew to his face. Color suffused her face, as she missed none of the length of him along the way. Fear for Nicholas vied with anger at Jack for stirring up the mob. For all Captain Hood’s confidence in his own abilities, it seemed likely he was unleashing a violence he could not control.
“You must listen to me, Nicholas,” Julia urged. “The women say you are to be the Guy. Nicholas, do you hear me? They plan to burn you in effigy. It could easily turn to serious trouble.”
Nicholas raised one eyebrow, seemingly unmoved. “And then I came home to find my wife in the arms of another man.”
“I wasn’t in his arms,” Julia protested. Feebly.
“Somehow,” Nicholas continued softly, “nothing seems to matter very much at the moment. Finish the drying and get me to bed.”
All thought of Guys, pitchforks and bonfires flew from her head. Julia bit her lip. Grasping the towel like a defensive barrier, she gingerly patted her way up from ankle to knee to inner thigh. When her hand slowed, seemingly frozen in place, Nicholas took pity on her. Placing his hand over hers, he guided the softness of the towel into the hills and valleys of his most intimate anatomy. Strange. He had not believed anyone could actually turn purple. Hell! It wasn’t as if she were a perishing virgin.
At the first loosening of her husband’s grip, Julia bounded to her feet. “I’ll run down the hall and get your nightshirt and robe,” she said, already halfway across the room. “You can’t go back to your room like that.”
“The hell with my room,” Nicholas murmured. “Just give me your shoulder to lean on. The bed’s not more than six feet away.”
“You can’t stay here!”
“Will if I want to.” A twitch of his lips revealed that he was not so far gone in drink and exhaustion that he wasn’t aware of his use
of the childhood cliché. With the aid of the tall back of the chair, he levered himself to his feet. Nicholas’ gaze locked with Julia’s until slowly, reluctantly, she returned to his side. He draped his arm over her shoulders. Together they made it the few feet to the bed where Nicholas swayed precariously while Julia drew back the covers. He fell on his face in utter contentment. Home at last.
As she bent to pull up the bedding over his long lean body, Julia paused, sheet and quilt pinched between her fingers. Dear God! Her questing hands had felt these scars but not seen them until tonight. Still livid, they ranged across his back, his buttocks and down his legs. She sent a silent prayer for the Spanish monks who had saved Nicholas’ life.
Afraid to name the overwhelming emotions which swept over her, Julia finished her task, tucking the bedding up to her husband’s neck as one would for a sleeping child. Her anger had long since faded to compassion. And much more. Once again, that last night in La Coruña came flooding back. The numbing desolation. The inconsolable anguish of knowing Nicholas was dying and she could do next to nothing to prevent it. The joy of the previous night—their precious moments together—fading with each rasping, shallow breath from his mutilated body. And now that he was restored to her?
She had loved him enough to give him up to his Spanish violet, had she not? Or was her self-sacrifice merely a fit of jealous pique? Her stupid pride had rejected his attempts at reconciliation. And now—when she was finally succumbing to the uncontrollable desire to win his love—she had ruined everything.
Jack had ruined everything.
No! She had scorned what Nicholas offered. Marriage without love had not been good enough for her overweening pride. She had expected to have it all. It was her own confusion and hurt, her blind notions of noble self-sacrifice which brought Jack hotfoot to the rescue. If she had not fought Nicholas every step of the way, Jack would not have come to offer good advice. To offer all he had.
Never blame Jack. The fault was hers alone.
And now she had Nicholas where she wanted him. In her bed, alone in a secret corner of the house. And she doubted even a genuine spirit escaped from the All Hallow’s revelries could wake him. With a sigh Julia rummaged in the back of her drawer until she found one of her old cotton nightgowns. Its voluminous yardage settled over her body in pristine folds of purity. Armor against her own overwhelming emotions. Too late, she realized it was the twin of the gown she had worn that night in London. The night her Dream became reality.
In La Coruña there had been no gown at all. She sank down on the edge of the bed and let memory wash over her. The cold wind stirring the heavy curtains as it surged through the shattered windows. The crackle and hiss of the logs Nicholas threw on the fire. His strong, capable fingers gently unlacing her boots. Those ugly, ragged boots she would keep through all the years of her life. The fleeting roughness of his calloused hands as he rolled down her stockings, the flickering butterfly touch on the buttons down her back. The cold had disappeared as if it had never been, leaving warmth, light and love.
“No gown…warmer skin to skin,” came a murmured protest from the bed.
Lord! She had thought him sound asleep.
“Smell good.”
“Wha…”
“You…smell…good.”
Julia choked. The herbal bath seemed part of another lifetime. She seized on the one concrete problem which had to be solved. An anchor in a sea of seething conflicts. If Nicholas was awake, it was as much her duty to warn him as it was to save Willow Herbals. She would have to make him understand.
“Nicholas, they mean to make you the Guy. Do you understand me, Nicholas? They plan to burn you in effigy. You must put a stop to it before something terrible happens.”
“Tomorrow.”
“What?”
“Talk ’morrow.”
“Nicholas!”
“G’night, querida.”
“Nicholas…”
“Julia.” He was making an effort, forcing a thought which had just occurred to him.
“Nicholas, you must…”
“Baby,” he murmured. “Tom Pickering said to tell you.
Baby! “Baby? What baby?”
“Baby from the mountains. Pickering’s here with Avery. Said to tell you he saw the baby. Fletcher’s a corporal now. Baby’s…a toddler.”
He lived. The baby lived! “A miracle,” Julia exulted. As was the life beside her. “Nicholas?”
But he was fast asleep, his tousled sandy hair falling onto his face, softening his rugged features. His nose was swollen, one eye turning black and there was a tiny cut on his lip. But Nicholas still looked remarkably like the officer who had ridden onto the parade ground and into her heart almost three years earlier. She had tried to remain angry, tried to summon up the pain of the immense hurt she had suffered. But how could she when her husband was vulnerable instead of awesome? Appealing instead of frightening. He was her Nicholas. She was bound to him as Violante would never be.
If he still wanted her.
Querida? He was probably thinking of someone else…
Jack was right. She’d be a fool to let him go.
* * * * *
In the gray light of early morning Nicholas forced open his bloodshot eyes and regarded the strange unadorned ceiling above him with interest. After a few moments, puzzlement turned to silent profanity. He inched his head around with extreme caution, surveying the shambles of the room. Hell and damnation! He and Jack were both old enough to know better. A bad end to a worse day. Then again, he’d woken to find himself in far worse places.
Nicholas was increasingly aware—through throbbing head, screaming muscles and acute chagrin—that the fire might have turned to ashes but the body snuggled into his side was marvelously warm and comforting. When had Julia become so appealing? He thought back to the wide-eyed eighteen-year-old who had opened the door to him when he had first reported to his new commanding officer. He had found her strength of character and strong will annoying. Now? Even last night, when strangulation had seemed a tempting solution to his problem, he found her magnificent. The truth was, he was exactly where he wished to be. In his wife’s bed.
In Julia Tarleton’s bed.
With a small sigh, Nicholas settled back into his pillow, shifting his weight still closer to the soft warmth beside him. In spite of brandy, anger and exhaustion, every detail of last night came back with awful clarity. Was there such a word as “revelatory”? If not, there should be, for some such expression was needed to describe the last twenty-four hours. He was hung over and surrounded by a sea of irritated women and angry men. His workers were in rebellion, his solicitor living high on The Willow’s profits. His wife had gone into trade. His best friend was quite possibly his wife’s lover. A hell of a time to discover he was in love with his wife. No matter what she had done. Or with whom.
So what was he doing here snuggled into her warmth, still as a mouse? Watching long brown lashes against cheeks gone pale under damp and cloudy English skies? Suffering from desire he couldn’t assuage because he’d made a fool of himself? Because he still wondered if she preferred Jack?
Because he needed one of Sophy’s potions before he cast up his accounts.
Because he wasn’t certain if he reached for his wife, she would welcome him into her arms.
And this wasn’t the moment to put his luck to the test. He was no Prince Charming and this was not the time to wake Sleeping Beauty with a kiss. However much he might want to.
Nicholas eased himself out of bed. Helping himself to a sheet from the linen cupboard, he unbolted the door and crept down the hall to his room. Every moment he expected a piercing shriek from a maid sent to light the morning fires. Acutely aware of the irony of skulking in embarrassment through the halls of his own house, Nicholas allowed his anger to flare. Never, never again would he creep out of his wife’s bed at dawn.
Or any other time.
Julia was his and it was high time she knew it.
Th
ey belonged together.
Chapter Seventeen
Meg Runyon set the breakfast tray on top of a dusty, much-scarred deal table in the old box room. What little light there was filtered through panes of glass silted by years of deliberate neglect. Using both hands, Meg reached inside the large wooden cupboard and felt for the bit of carving on the back panel that was the key to the secret staircase. With a sharp click one side of the cupboard swung inward. Heaving a sigh of relief, Meg picked up the tray and slipped her ungainly form through the narrow opening. Balancing the tray and negotiating the narrow stairs in the awkwardness of her advanced pregnancy were not the easiest tasks. Meg paused at the top to catch her breath, resting the tray on the newel post.
Holy Mary, Mother of God… The room was a shambles.
The tray teetered precariously. Meg’s horrified gaze flew to the bed, fearing to find her mistress lying in a crumpled bloody heap.
Julia, who had been awake for some time morosely contemplating her sins, crossed the room in a flash. She grabbed Meg’s tray, assuring her she was unhurt. No one had been killed. At least not yet.
After setting the tray on the bed, Julia dragged the ladder-back chair next to the bed and helped Meg into it. “You’ll share my coffee,” she said. Over Meg’s protests, Julia poured steaming coffee from a silver pot into a fragile porcelain cup and offered it to her maid.
Meg sipped and sighed. “A sight different from Corunna, ain’t it, missus?”
Julia glanced at the wreckage of her room. “Not as much as I’d like,” she murmured.
“Ain’t—are you not going to read your letter?”
Julia continued to ignore the sealed parchment perched prominently on her breakfast tray. The style of her name on the outside was unmistakable. Bold, heavily black and dashing. In the manner of Nicholas Tarleton’s Last Will and Testament.
“Nicholas found Jack here last night,” Julia said. “And you need not looked so shocked. You should know me better than that! Yet…it could not have looked worse,” she conceded on a sigh. “Nicholas cannot help but believe that Jack and I… Oh, Meg,” she whispered, “what am I to do?”
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