by Lily Maxton
So she’d stood there numbly and told Adam that her father was dead. Adam had put his arms around her, something he’d never done before. At first, her own arms had hung limply at her sides, but then they’d gone around his back and held him tight. She’d felt safe and peaceful in his arms.
In that moment, she couldn’t think what to say. Their friendship had changed in an instant, shifted forever. Friends might touch occasionally, but they certainly didn’t hold each other as though their lives depended on it. She’d tilted her head back to look up at him. “You’re very warm,” she’d said, rather stupidly, and felt herself blush.
The glimmer of a smile had touched his lips. “So are you.”
Was she? She couldn’t tell.
And then his gaze had drifted to her lips. It was as though they both, in the exact same moment, realized how close to each other their lips were, and that a few easy inches would close the distance.
What would it be like? Was his mouth soft? Was it as warm as the rest of him?
A few easy inches would answer every question. And, oh, how desperately she’d wanted to know!
She’d felt her lips part as she looked up at him—a silent invitation.
Which he’d taken, slowly though, as if he wanted to make sure she had time to pull back if she didn’t want the same.
She didn’t pull back.
His lips had grazed hers gently, sending little shockwaves down her limbs. Then he’d pressed his mouth to hers more fully. His hand had gently traced her jaw as he coaxed her. When her mouth opened under his and their breaths tangled, she’d felt a shock of heat between her legs.
The answers to the questions beat through her head. What was it like? Wonderful. Were his lips soft? As silk. Were they as warm as the rest of him? No, they were hotter. They burned her.
He burned her.
Their lips pressed harder. She could feel his teeth, and his tongue. Their bodies pressed harder, as though if they pushed hard enough they could crawl inside each other. What had started out as gentle quickly turned into a flame that would consume them both.
That was when fear had shot down her spine. Succumbing to the flame would be like hammering the nails into her own coffin. Adam was as poor as she was—if they let their emotions and desires guide them, they would be each other’s shackles. They would bind each other to that hopeless place of poverty and despair.
It had felt like spiders were crawling along her skin. She wanted out.
She wanted out.
She had to get out.
So she’d done the hardest thing she’d ever had to do—she pushed away from him.
One of them had to be practical. If he wouldn’t do it, she would—even if the pain was unbearable. She would bear it for both of them.
Their breathing had been heavy in the silence of the room, and his eyes were dark.
“Julia?”
“I…I need time alone,” she’d said. “Please, Adam.” The words were wrenched from her, from the depths of her soul. She hadn’t wanted to say them. What she’d wanted was to stay in his embrace, to feel him all around her, to feel that shimmer of hope again before it was washed away in desperation.
But she’d known that would destroy them both.
“We’ll speak later?” he said.
And she’d lied. She’d lied to him. It still made her want to break down in tears. She’d given one quick nod, because her throat was too tight to speak.
Then she’d fled, back up to the rooms she’d lived in with her father, where nothing remained but the ghosts of regret and loneliness, and she’d cried as she thought about how to escape. From that world. From that horrible, dead-end life.
From her best friend.
The boy she was starting to love.
Julia was jerked back to the present as Adam lowered the now-empty tankard. “Bad manners,” she muttered to cover her anguish at the memories.
“It’s bad manners to waste perfectly good ale,” he retorted.
He set the tankard back on the table and turned to go. He didn’t help her up, didn’t pull back her chair, didn’t wait for her. He was making it clear that he’d offered his escort as reluctantly as she’d accepted it.
She was put in the embarrassing position of having to trot to catch up with him. When she did, he didn’t acknowledge her, but faced straight ahead. They walked back to Blakewood Hall in uneasy silence, leaving a space between them of about four feet at all times. It was almost as though they both knew they’d gone too far. They’d been too companionable with one another, and now they were scurrying to resurrect their much needed distance. They were scurrying to remember they weren’t friends anymore. And even if they could both recall the time when they were, and more, their situations now forbid it.
But Julia wondered why acknowledging that fact felt so depressing.
Chapter Four
Julia couldn’t sleep that night. She wandered down to the kitchen in the haunting silence between midnight and dawn. Blakewood Hall was vast, but she managed, somehow, not to get lost, even though she was only guided by the light of one flickering candle.
She found the kitchen, set the candleholder down, and rummaged through the pots and pans looking for a kettle. There was something comforting about the monotony, the ritual, of making tea.
She stoked the fire in the cook stove and put the kettle of water on, lowering herself into a chair by the massive kitchen table as she waited.
“Do you need help Miss Forsythe?” a voice asked from the doorway.
She turned, startled to see the housekeeper, Mrs. Davis, pulling a dressing robe tight around herself.
“No, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you.”
“I’m a light sleeper,” the woman said, lifting her shoulders in a slight shrug. “May I sit down?”
Julia didn’t particularly want company, but she didn’t want to be rude, either. And she liked Mrs. Davis. She was a very no-nonsense sort of woman, but under the calm efficiency, she had a kind manner. Julia would place her in her early thirties—a bit young for a housekeeper, though she seemed to do her job well. She didn’t know if Mrs. Davis was actually married, or if she’d taken the title because she was the housekeeper and the added moniker was the standard, but she’d yet to meet a Mr. Davis.
Julia gazed across the table at her. She wasn’t sure what to say to the woman. “I’m making tea,” she said.
“I see that,” Mrs. Davis said, sounding a little amused.
“Would you like some?”
“Are you offering to serve me?” She sounded even more amused.
“Why not?” Julia said. “I’m already making the tea, aren’t I?”
“I suppose you are. And you haven’t managed to burn anything down yet, so you must have some experience with the task.”
“I haven’t been waited on my whole life, you know,” Julia returned.
Mrs. Davis looked at her with her eyes slightly narrowed. “No,” she agreed. “I did not think you had.”
Julia heard the low rumble of boiling water and went to the stove, turning her back on the woman as she busied herself with the kettle. “Why not?”
“Pardon?”
“Why did you not think so?”
There was a slight hesitation, then, “You don’t have that quality about you—as if you believe you deserve certain things from life. Lord Riverton has it,” she added impassively.
Julia loaded a tray with the tea things. “You should not speak about Lord Riverton to me. He’s been very…generous.” The lie tasted sour on her tongue, but as much as she hated Riverton at the moment, she was still his mistress, and it was bad form to insult him.
“My apologies,” the woman said, but she said it so evenly that Julia couldn’t tell if she believed her.
Julia carried over the tray. “I drink mine plain,” she said, when she realized she’d forgotten the sugar bowl.
“I do, as well,” Mrs. Davis replied.
They sat in silence for a momen
t, the only sound in the kitchen the sipping of tea.
“Are you married?” Julia asked abruptly.
“Widowed,” Mrs. Davis said.
“Ah.”
“Are you with child?” the housekeeper returned.
Julia set down the delicate tea cup so quickly that it nearly overturned. “Why would you ask such a thing?”
The other woman looked thoughtful. “It doesn’t make much sense to me that you should be here. Lord Riverton has never had a mistress stay here before. Certainly not on her own. And yesterday at breakfast I saw you put your hands on your forehead as though you felt faint.”
Julia glared at the woman. She really preferred to keep this pregnancy a secret. She hadn’t quite decided what to do with her life going forward, but there was no scenario in which everyone knowing she was an unwed mother was a good thing. “If you tell anyone—”
The housekeeper straightened. “Goodness, why would I tell someone? I’m not a gossip.”
Thank God. Julia made a great effort to clutch at her teacup and bring it to her lips without her hand trembling. She actually felt relieved that someone else finally shared the burden of her secret. It was as if having this kind woman know her situation let loose all the demons that had flooded Julia with self-doubt.
“I’m going to be a dreadful mother,” she burst out.
Mrs. Davis blinked. “Why should you think so?”
“My own mother died when I was seven. I barely remember her.”
The few precious memories she had—her mother singing a lullaby in a soft, lovely voice, reading to her from a book, brushing her hair while her father sat beside them, the three of them going to a teashop and her father buying her sugarplums—she held on to those memories tightly and never, ever spoke of them. If she spoke of them that would make them real instead of sacred.
And real things were too easily destroyed.
True reality…that was sneaking into her mother’s birthing room because she’d heard what she’d thought was her father’s laughter. But how could she have known? She’d never seen him shed any tears, much less succumb to sobs that wracked his entire frame.
Reality was her mother’s still, still body, and the smell of death and blood, and her father standing over his wife while he cradled his pale son in his arms. While he shook. Just stood there and shook. And when, too weak to stand, he’d crumpled to the floor and continued to cry.
Reality was her father growing more distant from Julia every day after. Until he barely spoke to her at all. Reality was all of those memories of warmth and safety and family careening away like storm-strewn petals.
It was a wrenching, bone-deep hurt.
But those things wouldn’t be her child’s reality. She would give her baby everything she possibly could, every happiness. She would do her best to build a new reality, a new life, for them, even if she had to tear apart her hands to do it.
She just prayed she wouldn’t fail.
Mrs. Davis was studying her, a trace of sympathy in her eyes. “Losing your mother at a young age doesn’t mean you’ll be a bad mother.”
“But I have no…no experience with babies. I don’t even know how to hold one!” Julia lamented.
“It’s not that difficult,” Mrs. Davis said, sounding amused all over again.
Julia was glad to be such a bountiful source of entertainment. “Really?” she snapped.
The other woman ignored her churlishness. “Just remember to support the head.”
Julia’s lips parted in surprise. “Why?”
“Because babies have weak necks.”
“Oh, good God!” Julia exclaimed. “Will its head fall off if I forget?”
Mrs. Davis laughed, a light melodious sound. “I’ve never seen a baby’s head fall off.”
“My baby’s head will probably fall off,” Julia muttered, covering her eyes in misery.
“Do not worry so. These things will happen naturally. No good comes from fretting.” The housekeeper urged Julia’s hands from her eyes and smiled at her. “Drink your tea. I promise everything will be fine.”
Julia obeyed, and though she was still fretting and was quite sure she wouldn’t be done fretting until the child was fully grown, and maybe not even then, she enjoyed feeling that someone was looking out for her. She had a few friends in London—the mistresses of other upper-class men—and while they enjoyed each other’s company, they weren’t close enough to unburden all of their deepest problems on one another.
It felt good to have someone to talk to at Blakewood Hall. Someone who wasn’t Adam. Because talking with Adam made her relive too many buried feelings that she shouldn’t be reliving.
She groaned, pressing her fingertips to her temples. She wasn’t supposed to be thinking about him. She already thought about him entirely too much as it was.
Despite Mrs. Davis’s optimism, she had the sinking feeling that everything was not going to be fine.
“Contrary to popular belief,” Julia said dolefully, “tea doesn’t cure all ailments.”
The next morning, Julia slipped out of the hall under the pale light of dawn. The shadowed areas of grass were covered in small droplets of dew, and the summer air was still cool. She wrapped a soft Kashmir shawl around her shoulders and moved past a bed of flowers. The breeze wrapped their clove-like scent around her as she watched the sun cast purple and pink streaks in the sky. She supposed if she had to be anywhere for a month, Blakewood Hall was as beautiful a place as any.
It would have been perfect, in fact, if her past hadn’t shown up to nip at her heels like an overeager sheepdog.
A startled exclamation escaped her when something green sailed past her head. She followed its trajectory, which led straight to the subject of her thoughts, who was kneeling on the ground by the flowerbeds. The tiresome man was always underfoot. It was as if—as if he worked here, she thought with dry amusement.
Adam had lifted his head at the sound of her shriek. His hat was plain with a wide brim, the sort of hat worn by a man who would be outside under the sun for long periods of time. Something guarded and elusive passed over his face when he met her gaze. It made her heart ache, this invisible wall between them. It made her yearn for the closeness they’d once shared.
She was altogether a fool. She must be, to yearn for something that could ruin everything.
“I apologize. I didn’t notice you,” he said.
She moved closer and looked down at him. His fingertips were dark with soil and there was a small pile of weeds scattered on the ground around him. “Don’t you have subordinates to do this kind of work?”
“Aye,” he said. “But I like starting the morning this way.”
“So it’s something you do for yourself? Like my painting?”
He nodded. She thought she detected the hint of a smile.
“What do you like about it?” she asked, curious.
“The feel of the soil against my hands.”
She frowned. It must be true—he wasn’t wearing gloves and a nearby trowel appeared to be unused. But wasn’t soil just moist and dirty? It didn’t make much sense to her.
“You rose early,” he commented. “I thought the fashionable people slept till noon in London.”
There it was again, that disapproving tone, as though he was some sort of puritan and everyone in London, especially her, was a wastrel. It rankled. “I couldn’t sleep,” she said. She watched him for a few minutes.
“Are you going to stand there all day?” he asked, not looking at her. “You’re blocking the light.”
She gritted her teeth, and, making a sudden spiteful decision, she sank down next to him, tucking her legs under her on the cool ground. She was, in essence, the mistress of Blakewood Hall, and she could go wherever she liked, irate gardeners be damned.
He glanced at her swiftly with a raised brow, then went back to his work as though she didn’t exist.
After sitting in silence for a few minutes, she started to grow bored. She watched hi
s long capable fingers grasp a weed and pluck it. It didn’t look very difficult. She leaned forward, eyeing a slender green sprout, and yanked it from the earth. It was actually sort of satisfying to feel the weed’s roots relinquish the soil, as though she were a conqueror ravaging a little green city.
Adam had stopped working and was watching her. “That wasn’t a weed,” he pointed out.
“It wasn’t?” she exclaimed.
He shook his head.
“Oh, dear.” She looked at the drooping plant in her hand. “Forgive me,” she whispered to it, before tossing it over her shoulder.
When she looked at him again, a slight smile was tilting his mouth. He pointed out which plants were weeds and which should be left alone. “If you truly want to help,” he said, “you should wear gloves.”
“You don’t wear gloves,” she replied.
“I don’t mind getting my hands dirty.”
“Nor do I,” she said with a haughty sniff. To prove it, she pressed her fingers deep into the soil as she worked to loosen a weed that had good purchase in the ground. The soil felt moist and dirty, as she’d expected, but oddly, it was an enjoyable sensation on her hands.
She liked the smell of it, too. She leaned forward. Earthy and dark and a little sweet. She wondered if Adam smelled anything like the soil he tended.
Then she felt something slimy touch the back of her finger and she shrieked. She yanked her hands out of the earth, wondering if she’d just touched a worm. She eyed the dirt suspiciously, but when she saw Adam watching her with his head cocked in polite inquiry—too polite…it was borderline amusement—she clenched her jaw and continued to work. But she did pick up the trowel and use the tool to rake through the weeds instead of her hands.
“What are these?” she asked after a moment, glancing at a bundle of small red flowers with frilly petals. She didn’t mind silence when she was by herself, but she didn’t like it when she was with another person. Particularly with Adam. It felt too strained.