Julia London 4 Book Bundle

by The Rogues of Regent Street

  If Julian harbored any notion that he might keep the teas his little secret, he was quickly corrected one afternoon at White’s. Adrian Spence, Alex Christian, the Duke of Sutherland, along with Victor and Louis, descended on him like an attacking horde of geese, demanding that he stop the teas at once. They insisted his wife was perhaps a bit deranged and definitely in need of a strong hand. Because, in addition to smoking his cheroots made of a special American tobacco and drinking his port—which the duke claimed was a bit like kissing a chap who had just come from White’s—Claudia and her ladies were exploring new concepts in women’s equality that had every man feeling embattled in his home. It seemed that the ladies were insisting on some rather intolerable changes, including learning about the parliamentary process and the system of suffrage in England, the very absurd notion being that women should very well vote one day. Heaven forfend.

  What the men did not know, thank God, was that the teas were not the only furious activity that had servants scrambling in his house. Someone was always rushing somewhere; Claudia seemed constantly gone off in pursuit of something to do with girls and schools, alms-houses, hospitals, and a half dozen other charitable endeavors that she fancied. And when she wasn’t engaged with her friends or her charities, his little nieces, Jeannine and Dierdre, were frequent visitors to Kettering House. Claudia read them stories, or marched them off to the kitchens where they painted little clay pots and planted little sprigs of violets in them. The results of their labors covered every conceivable surface in her sitting room.

  More often than not, however, the girls arrived in frilly little gowns, then emerged from Claudia’s rooms dressed in play costumes—as knights, or sea captains, or highwaymen. They did not aspire, apparently, to queenly thrones or other maidenly pursuits. Julian had no idea where his wife found the capes and wooden swords and red coats that transformed his nieces into little men—although he did recognize that their highwaymen masks were his neckcloths—but he assumed their play was innocent enough.

  Until he discovered that Claudia fancied the girls little jockeys.

  It had astounded him to discover the two little girls on Ladies Mile in Hyde Park one afternoon, riding an old mare bareback—wearing boy’s short pants, no less, and oh yes, riding astride. After sending the three of them home, Julian decided not to mention the incident to Louis, who had some rather fastidious ideas about what girls should like and do. Nor did he think it necessary to mention that his footman, Robert, was overseeing their wooden sword-play on a fairly regular basis … or that Eugenie seemed to think all of these antics perfectly all right.

  He rather believed Louis would appreciate his great discretion and perhaps might even return the favor one day.

  All in all, living in Claudia’s sphere was a little unnerving.

  On one particularly crisp afternoon, Julian ventured out on the back terrace to enjoy the change in seasons and a cheroot. The crystal clear air was filled with the scent of fall, and as he wandered across the flagstones, languidly perusing fallen leaves, he spotted Claudia, all three of his sisters, Mary Whitehurst, and another young woman he did not recognize on a grassy lawn below.

  Tables were set up on the outer edge of the lawn and covered with tablecloths, small vases of roses, and a variety of plates that looked to be luncheon fare. Two footmen stood nearby, ready to serve. But the women were not seated for luncheon—they were gathered about in a tight little circle, examining what looked to be a rather crudely stuffed scarecrow. Where they had found that thing was a mystery, and intrigued by it, Julian paused to see what they were about.

  Claudia and Eugenie were engaged in a rather animated discussion. Nothing new in that, certainly, but as the ladies abruptly turned away from the scarecrow and started fanning out in something of a half circle, Julian realized with a shock that they were all holding pistols. Real pistols.

  They took care to put an arm’s length between each other, twenty paces or so back from the scarecrow. Julian watched in stunned terror as Claudia abruptly lifted her pistol and fired at the scarecrow—missing completely, of course, the bullet landing God knew where. Panic and fear seized him at once. “Claudia!” he roared, and tossing aside the cheroot, rushed down the terrace steps. Eugenie saw him first. Smiling, she waved to him as she carelessly set her pistol on the edge of a luncheon table. To Julian’s horror, the thing discharged. A collective screech went up from the women and in a sudden flurry of skirts and petticoats, all six of them flung themselves down on the grass.

  So did the footmen.

  Claudia was the first to push herself up on her elbows and glance around at the other women as they slowly lifted their heads. “There we are! No one appears to be hurt,” she announced rather cheerfully.

  Julian stormed into their midst, arms akimbo. “It’s a miracle none of you are hurt!” he angrily chastened them. “Ladies, come to your feet if you can, but do not touch the pistols!” he ordered, and leveled a fierce look on Claudia. The Demon’s Spawn smiled. A radiant, self-satisfied smile.

  And she kept smiling as Julian ascertained that no one and nothing was hurt but an old birdbath. His heart was still pounding mercilessly, and with the help of the two stunned footmen, he quickly gathered up the pistols as the ladies brushed themselves off, chattering excitedly about Eugenie’s mishap. When he flashed a dark look at Ann, she proudly reported that her gun was not loaded.

  Eugenie mumbled that perhaps Louis did not need to know the exact details of their luncheon, to which Julian hastily and quietly agreed, and Sophie only glared at him, which he thought rather fortunate, given that she had a gun in her hand.

  By the time he came to his wife, he was of a strong inclination to drag her over his knee for having scared the wits from him. He recognized the gun she held as one of his own, had the rather sinking suspicion that the ladies were all carrying their husbands’ guns, and realized they had been driving about town with loaded pistols in their reticules. Good God! “What in the hell do you think you are doing?” he demanded, very gingerly taking the gun from her hand.

  “Teaching them how to shoot.” She said it as if it was the most natural thing in the world to say. Or do.

  Julian’s frown deepened. “Claudia? Do you even know how to shoot?”

  “Honestly, I thought I did,” she said, glancing thoughtfully at the scarecrow. “Papa showed me once.”

  That response only made his heart pound harder. “Someone could have been seriously harmed,” he admonished her. “Why in God’s name would you think to teach them to shoot?”

  That earned him a dark look that suggested he was an imbecile for even asking. “Why not teach them?” she demanded. “Don’t women have the right to protect themselves?”

  “This has nothing to do with rights, Claudia, this has to do with keeping six women from harming themselves!”

  “Then you think us too simple!”

  “No,” he growled, raking a menacing gaze across her.

  “Then what?”

  “Claudia!” he fairly bellowed. “Women have fathers and husbands to protect them, and therefore, it is not really necessary that they—”

  “That’s ridiculous,” she interrupted, flicking her wrist disdainfully.

  “No, it is not ridiculous,” he insisted. “There is a reason for physical differences between the sexes, my dear. Men guard and protect their families, women nurture their young and keep the home fires burning, and that’s all there is to it. Now, if you want to learn to shoot, I will teach you. But I will not have you endanger the lives of others because of some misguided notion of women’s rights!”

  That was received with dead silence. From the corner of her eye, Claudia stole a glance at her guests standing about, mouths open, enthralled by the exchange between them. She mumbled something under her breath that sounded very much like “blockhead,” and looked up at him, her eyes shimmering with her fury.

  He responded by bestowing the fiercest look in his arsenal on her. “Do not, under any circumst
ance, think to show these women how to shoot again unless I am with you, or Louis or Victor is. Do I make myself perfectly clear, madam?”

  Her blue-gray eyes darkened. “Perfectly clear,” she muttered, and Julian actually feared whatever the hell that tone of voice meant. Feared it so much that he turned and abruptly marched from the lawn with his cache of pistols, forcing himself with each step to remember that his wife was rather unconventional, and in calmer moments, he actually adored that about her.

  Days after the shooting accident, Claudia was still working doubly hard to push all thoughts of her arrogant husband from her mind. Actually, she did not allow herself to think of anything but the activities she had carefully planned for each day, because that was the only way she could keep hold of her sanity. Every moment of every day was filled with trips to her charities, or Upper Moreland Street when she could get away, impromptu invitations to friends, and even a trip or two to the textile factories in search of a site for her school. If she could find nothing else to occupy her time or her thoughts or her vision, she made sketches of the girls’ school she would build one day, forcing herself to mentally count desks and chairs and slates and primers so that she would not think of him.

  That usually did the trick, as funding for her school was uppermost in her thoughts these days. Unfortunately, donations promised to her before The Disaster were now, for all intents and purposes, nonexistent. What few she had received—those from Lady Violet, Ann and Eugenie, and of course, the bank draft she had received from Julian the day after her tea—were hardly enough to meet her need. Claudia had figured, based on the allowance she had negotiated from Julian, that it would take her twenty years to save the funds necessary to build a quality school—and that was assuming she never spent another farthing.

  So she doggedly continued to call on old acquaintances in her quest for donations, and in the course of it, learned to accept the refusals that came with thinly veiled censure because of her scandal. She developed a humble appreciation for the few donations that were made.

  Lord Dillbey didn’t help matters, either. It seemed the old goat enjoyed deriding her efforts in various public places. She knew that he had taken to calling her planned school the Whitney School of Morals, Loose though They Are. Apparently, Dillbey made a joke of her everywhere he went, and she feared that those who might have contributed were loath to do so now, not when they faced certain ridicule by a powerful statesman.

  It was the dilemma of the lack of donations for her school that she was trying to contemplate one afternoon in her sitting room, but her usual attempts to fill her thoughts had failed her, and it was Julian’s fault. Punching her fists to her hips, she glared at her latest rendition of the school she had hung on the wall, then at the books spread across her desk. She tried, Lord God she tried to push him from her mind, put him at a safe distance, pretend he wasn’t significant. As if it were humanly possible to do that! No, it was not possible, not when he came to her as he had last night, touching her in ways that made her shiver, lifting her into ethereal worlds where her body and his were indistinguishable from one another. And it seemed the harder she tried not to feel it, the more she did. Deeper and fuller and more profoundly each time. Damn him!

  She abruptly lifted her hands to her face; her fingers felt cool against her heated skin as she recalled a conversation she had overheard once in the ladies’ retiring room at some rout. Lady Crittendon, a beautiful woman married to a man as wealthy as Midas and as old as Father Time, was in conversation with a friend when Claudia entered the room, and proceeded to relate a chance encounter with Lord Kettering in a low, silky tone. Insisting that neither had intended anything to happen, she had implied rather boldly that they had exchanged more than a greeting. When her friend asked her if she was concerned that the Rogue might brag of his conquest, Lady Crittendon had laughed and confided that Kettering was a man who could hold his tongue very well indeed—and in all the right places. The two women had tittered gleefully, and Claudia had wondered what they meant.

  Oh, what ignorance! Not once had she ever imagined, not even in her wildest dreams, what a man might do to a woman with his hands and his tongue and his—She suddenly sprawled onto a chair, her legs stretched in front of her, her arms draped over the sides, and took several deep breaths.

  At first she had resisted him, quite certain no self-respecting woman would allow that to happen. But her resistance was awfully weak and very short-lived—astounded as she was by the incredible sensation of his touch, quickly swept away by the sheer pleasure of it, she had writhed uncontrollably, shamelessly seeking more. He had held her firmly, sucking and nipping and laving her languidly, driving her to the edge of a desperation so deep that she had, at last, exploded into a thousand little pieces of herself and scattered all over the place.

  Claudia closed her eyes and drew a very deep breath in an attempt to steady her breathing, which was, all of a sudden, rather shallow.

  She had always understood, of course, why women flocked to him, only now, she understood it better than ever.

  But it was really the little things that made him so completely irresistible. Like the way he was constantly touching her. Affectionately, without thinking, as if it was second nature. He touched her hand, her waist, the wisps of hair around her forehead. Little, comforting touches that could soothe the most troubled of souls. Ooh, and there were the things he said to her at the height of passion; praising her beauty, whispering how ravenous with desire she made him.

  With a moan, Claudia pressed her forehead against the palm of her hand, wincing as another swell of longing swept over her, unwelcome and uninvited. He touched her, and then he would leave in the company of Arthur Christian, sometimes with Adrian Spence, too, the three of them laughing at some private jest as they sauntered down the curving steps to St. James Square. No one had to tell her what they did or where they went, and certainly Julian never offered. It wasn’t necessary. She recognized the pattern because it had been the same with Phillip: Rogues leaving in the company of one another, laughing gaily, attracting the attention of men and women alike as they climbed into their expensive carriages and set off for a night of carousing with drink and women from Madame Farantino’s.

  She could never seem to quite fully reconcile the Rogue who set off for an evening of carousing with the husband who treated her so tenderly. When she tried, she was filled with doubt about her perceptions of him, inevitably debating herself until she was exhausted.

  Yes, well, this was the sort of uncertain marriage a woman made when she betrayed everything she had ever known and allowed herself to be seduced. Her punishment for giving in to her basest desires was her own private little hell where she was tortured by his touch, craved it, and wished every day of her life that he would love her, truly love her.

  Claudia’s hands fell to her lap and she slowly opened her eyes, forced herself to swallow past the dull pain in the pit of her belly, and focus on the sketch of her school. The school was her only answer. She had to focus on something, push her feelings down, bury them, ignore them completely. It was the only way she might survive.

  The rap at the door was a welcome intrusion. “Am I interrupting?” Sophie asked as she closed the door softly behind her.

  “Of course not!” Claudia quickly came to her feet, smiling. She had been quite relieved when Sophie finally returned from Ann’s to live at Kettering House—another, pleasant diversion from her thoughts. “Come, I’ve something to show you,” she said, gesturing Sophie forward.

  Sophie hurried across the room. “Oh, Claudia, there is something I absolutely must discuss with you.”

  “Me too. Look at my sketch, would you? I think this version might be too big, do you think?” she asked, peering closely at her drawing.

  Sophie looked at the sketch, then at Claudia. “But it’s exactly the same as the others.”

  “They are not exactly the same,” Claudia muttered, and yanked the sketch down. “What is it you wanted to discuss?” sh
e asked, tossing the sketch on a table with several others.

  With a groan, Sophie fell dramatically onto a settee. “Oh, Claudia, I am quite desperate! I swore I wouldn’t burden you, but my brother is so mean-spirited, I simply cannot abide living in this house a moment longer, I swear it!”

  That surprised Claudia—for all his faults, Julian doted on his sisters and always had. “Sophie!” she exclaimed, smiling. “What on earth are you talking about?”

  “You must promise not to take his side in this! I can’t speak of it to anyone except you,” she said, anxiously propping her weight on one elbow.

  Now she had Claudia’s undivided attention. “I promise,” she said, and sat on the edge of an embroidered chair next to the settee.

  Sophie pushed herself into a sitting position and looked forlornly at the carpet. “I’ve a beau,” she muttered.

  Claudia laughed. “Oh, Sophie, is that all? Who is he?”

  “Sir William Stanwood. He’s a baronet—do you know him?” she asked, a twinge of anxiousness in her voice.

  The name was only vaguely familiar to Claudia and she shook her head.

  “Oh, he’s wonderful!” exclaimed Sophie, suddenly beaming. “You will adore him! He’s quite handsome, and he’s very tall, and blond, and he is so very determined to make a good life, you know. He’s not at all like the dandies Aunt Violet brings around, but very conservative in his manner. A gentleman—”

  Claudia squeezed Sophie’s knee. “He sounds divine! So what is the trouble?”

  “Julian won’t allow me to see him,” Sophie said, sniffing indignantly.

  Something rumbled in the back of her mind, and Claudia’s smile faded. “Why on earth not?”

  “He believes William is not sincere in his esteem.”

  As your friend, I am honor-bound to say that Phillip is not the sort of man for you, Claudia. The old wound split open with Sophie’s words. “Is that so?” she asked icily. “And pray tell, what gives Kettering such superior insight?”