by Lily Maxton
Julia reached for the bell pull before she could think better of it.
She was breathing a little too quickly when Mrs. Davis came into the room. The other woman glanced at the easel and watercolor painting in front of Julia, and frowned. “What is that?” she asked.
Julia had forgotten all about the painting. She glanced back at the disorganized smears of green and brown on canvas. “It’s a tree,” she said.
“Ah,” the housekeeper said, sounding unconvinced.
“I’ve realized I don’t know your given name,” Julia said casually. “I think we are close enough to be familiar, don’t you?”
“Cassandra,” she answered levelly.
Julia blinked. It was a beautiful name, a powerful name. Seductive. Not what she’d been expecting. “Cassandra.”
“Cassie will do.”
“No,” Julia said, on a little huff of ironic air. “I don’t think it will. It’s the name of a girl. Cassandra is the name of a woman.”
And a woman she must be, if she’d captured Adam’s interest. For there was no mistaking—he was a man. More so than any spoiled aristocrat could ever be.
“Will you sit?” Julia asked, waving an arm at the settee.
Cassandra’s eyebrows lifted in mild inquiry, but she sat down delicately, perched on the edge of the chair like a bird about to take flight. She seemed to recognize Julia’s tension—that this wasn’t a casual, friendly meeting.
Julia pushed the easel to the side, so she had a clear view of the woman. For maybe the first time, she fully studied her. Cassandra sat with her spine completely erect, just as regal as the princess she was named after. Her eyes were a light, clear blue, like looking at water. Pacifying. Her face was a little rounded, but still pretty. There was tiredness in its lines, but beyond that, a calm, cool strength.
Cassandra Davis was a woman who would weather whatever storm was thrown her way.
Was that what Adam saw when he looked at her? Peace and strength? A place where he could take shelter?
Julia closed her eyes briefly, the ache in her throat spreading to the rest of her body. “You know Adam,” she said bluntly.
“It would be unusual for the housekeeper not to know the head gardener,” Cassandra replied.
“That’s not what I meant,” Julia answered with steely resolve. She would face the truth, even if it was something she didn’t want to hear.
“I know him,” Cassandra replied after a second’s pause.
They both recognized they were using the word in the biblical sense. “How long?”
Cassandra folded her hands in her lap and looked down at them before meeting Julia’s gaze. “A few years.”
It felt like Julia had been kicked in the stomach. Her sharp intake of breath broke the silence. “A few years?” Her voice wasn’t quite steady, and she hated herself for it.
Cassandra smiled slightly, but there wasn’t much warmth in it. “You are imagining, I think, a committed relationship. That’s not how it is. Or ever was.”
“You mean…you both take other lovers?” she asked, unsure if that made her feel better or worse. More women to think about. To wonder about. To rage at silently.
Cassandra shook her head. “I do not take other lovers. As for Adam, he might have. I cannot say for certain, but if he has, I don’t think there have been many.”
“Then what did you mean?” Julia asked impatiently.
The housekeeper only leveled those cool blue eyes at her. “This is rather hypocritical of you.”
“Hypocritical?” she said, unconvincingly, her voice too high. “I’m simply curious.”
“You can’t stand the thought of him with another woman. It’s written all over your face. Is he supposed to remain celibate while you take lover after lover, and they’re all printed about in the broadsheets?”
Julia went rigid. For the first time since meeting Cassandra, she experienced a moment of dislike. She made it sound like Julia had had dozens of lovers, as though she moved from one to the next as carelessly as a bee flitting from flower to flower. She wasn’t careless. Nor was she indiscriminate.
“That’s not what I said,” Julia responded tightly.
“But it’s what you would like, isn’t it?”
Yes, she would have preferred it that way. It was spiteful and hypocritical and selfish, and she knew it. But I didn’t love any of them, she wanted to say. I never loved any of them.
She didn’t know why, but that made a difference. In fact, it made all the difference in the world.
Cassandra was watching her carefully. A flash of something passed over her face. Pity, Julia thought. This was what she’d been reduced to—pity?
At that moment, Blakewood Hall ceased to be a respite. She wanted to go back to London, to the late nights and the endless motion. She wanted to go back to the life she was used to, instead of constantly feeling as if she was standing in high water, only realizing too late that she was in too deep.
“What I meant,” Cassandra said gently, “was that we were only…together…a handful of times throughout those years, and we haven’t visited each other for months now.”
Well, that didn’t sound like love. But what did Julia know of the subject? Only what she read in novels, and one never knew how truthful novels were. Her knowledge was too vicarious to be of any help.
“I see,” she said, though she really didn’t see anything at all.
“Sometimes there is an itch that needs to be scratched. You should understand.”
Julia frowned. “But your reaction the other day. It seemed a little more…involved than that.”
Cassandra lifted her shoulder. “Perhaps it was. I am not saying I haven’t grown fond of him. I am not saying that I won’t miss him if he turns his attention elsewhere.” She laughed mirthlessly. “But I’ve known since the beginning. A woman knows these things, even if she sometimes won’t admit them to herself.”
“Knows what?” Julia asked, impatient.
“When a man’s heart is claimed by someone else.”
Julia went utterly still. She had to lick her lips before she could speak, and when she did her voice was hoarse. “Who?”
“Who?” Cassandra asked, looking astounded. “Goodness, you can’t be that blind!”
…
When Adam presented himself at Cassandra’s chamber door that evening, she didn’t look surprised. They stared at each other in silence for a moment.
“May I come in?” he asked, his voice serious.
She smiled, a soft, tentative smile, as though she was trying to put him at ease, and stepped aside to let him walk past.
He stood in the middle of the small bedchamber, watching her.
She was the first to speak. “I imagine this isn’t a normal visit?”
“No,” he responded. “I’m sorry about what happened earlier.”
He was sorry. They’d become friends throughout the years, and occasionally they’d been lonely and their friendship had turned into more. He liked Cassandra. He cared for her, but it had never felt quite the same as what he’d felt for Julia.
Even when he’d wished, rather desperately, that it would.
Her smile turned a little sad. “Sorry for being in love with a woman you knew long before me? I cannot fault you for that. We’ve never made any commitments to each other.”
I’m not in love with her, he wanted to say. But it would be an automatic response. As though she’d tapped him just under the knee and his leg had swung out with no direction from his mind. It would be a lie.
He sighed, and took a seat on the end of the bed. She sat next to him, and he glanced at her helplessly, his hands clasped together between his spread knees. “I’ll understand if you don’t wish to be friends anymore, but I do value your friendship.”
“And I value yours,” she said. “Don’t think I shall give it up simply because the love of your life has reappeared.”
He smiled slightly, even as despair threatened to overtake him. “Wa
s your husband the love of your life?” he asked softly.
“Yes,” she replied, without hesitation.
He took her hand in a gentle grip.
Maybe they’d used each other—Cassandra to stave off her husband’s loss, and him to stave off the loss of the girl he loved. But he thought it was all right. They’d both been complicit.
“I like her,” she said quietly. “Julia.”
He looked at Cassandra, his eyebrow lifted in mild inquiry. “Do you? She’s easy to like, isn’t she?”
“What will you do when Riverton returns?”
He laughed hollowly. “I don’t know. If she stays here, I don’t know if I could stand seeing them together.”
“You’ll let her go?” She sounded surprised, as though she hadn’t thought him capable of giving up so easily.
“Not yet,” he said. “Not until I have to. Fifteen years ago I let her go, and she’s haunted me ever since.”
“Sometimes,” Cassandra began, “when we take tea in the afternoons, there will be moments when she gazes out the window, and she has an expression that’s almost like longing. But she hides it quickly. And she hides it well.”
He stared at Cassandra, studied her dear, familiar face. It was an acknowledgement that Julia might be haunted, too.
But it also sounded like it might be a warning.
…
The next day, Julia’s ankle was only a little bit sore, and she managed to escape her bedchamber and make slow progress around the grounds. With every corner she rounded, her pulse quickened at the prospect of seeing Adam. Maybe of running right into him as he covered ground with his long, purposeful strides. Maybe he would touch her elbow to steady her, and she would tilt her face up like a flower, reaching, reaching, striving for warmth and light—
Good God, she was daydreaming.
She shook her head and walked faster. This was becoming an untenable situation. Cassandra had implied that Julia had broken Adam’s heart. She’d done no such thing. He was sixteen years old when she’d seen him last. No one knew true love when they were that young. It was all empty dreams and foolish fantasies. Smoke and mirrors.
Except, there hadn’t been any of those things in the building where they’d lived, so if he had cared for her, it hadn’t been because she was a lovely mirage. Adam had seen her at her worst—her face splotchy and wet as she’d cried because she’d realized her father was breathing his last breaths. And as she’d railed and said horrible things about the man who’d given up on everything and everyone.
She’d told Adam she hoped her father’s death was a painful one. She hadn’t meant it. In fact, she’d felt like the worst sort of person for saying it, but she’d said it anyway.
It was the only time she’d ever really broken down. And Adam had been there for her.
He’d held her hand as she cried. He was nice enough not to remark on her runny nose. Julia had always wished she could cry prettily, but it was impossible to do unless one didn’t truly mean it. And she’d meant it more than anything.
She remembered his hand around hers, the heat and impression, the feeling of safety. She remembered thinking her hand was so small and frail in his, like a baby bird. He would be strong for her, she’d thought, if she couldn’t be strong for herself.
But the thought had only lasted a second. She’d known, even then, the only person in this life to rely on was yourself. Anything else only led to heartbreak.
She glanced up when she heard a voice call her name. It was Molly, veering toward her as she’d done before, alarmingly quickly, and straight and true. If she were an arrow she would hit the mark every time.
“We are leaving today,” Molly said when she stopped before her.
“I’m sorry I could not visit with you more. I’ve been laid up in bed with a twisted ankle,” Julia said.
“Adam told me.” Molly’s lips pursed, and after a moment of hesitation, she said, “I would like to speak with you about him.”
Julia clasped her hands, too tightly, in front of her. “Indeed? What of?”
“Don’t hurt him,” Molly said, the color heightening in her pale cheeks.
Julia smiled, a thin, humorless thing. “How could I hurt him? We are simply acquaintances.”
But Molly stood her ground. “I’m a little more astute than that. Some things are rather obvious, or maybe I should say, some people. Have a care with him.”
Julia glanced down at her hands. She wasn’t wearing gloves and she could see how white her knuckles were, which meant Molly could see it, too. She let her hands fall limply to her sides. “He’s a strong man. I doubt I could hurt him.”
Molly shook her head. “He’s strong in some ways. But not when it comes to you. He—” She broke off, and started again. “He wasn’t the same, after you left.”
“What do you mean?” Julia asked.
“He wasn’t the same,” Molly repeated. “With you, he smiled and he laughed. He was brighter. After you left, he didn’t smile or laugh for a very long time. Weeks and weeks.”
Julia blinked, horrified to find that her eyes were stinging. She bit her lower lip hard, bracing herself with the pain.
But Molly wasn’t done hammering in the guilt. “He went after you, you know.”
“What?” Julia’s voice was thick.
The other woman nodded, as though a suspicion had been confirmed. “He was gone for days, and when he came back he was thinner, and there was something hard in his eyes that hadn’t been there before.”
“Did he…find me?”
Oh God, find her doing what? Draping herself over her first lover at the disreputable gaming hell where he liked to spend his evening—letting him kiss her in public, caress her, pull her down onto his lap?
It hadn’t bothered her at the time. For all his public displays, he’d been kind, kinder, even, than she’d been expecting. But now, to think that Adam might have witnessed them together—bile rose in her throat.
“When I asked him, he said you weren’t coming back. He never talked about you again after that.”
Molly’s words fell like physical blows. Julia felt battered and weary in the aftermath. What had he thought of her? Had he been disgusted? It was one thing to know a fact—it was an entirely different situation to witness it firsthand.
But then anger roiled in her stomach, pushing away all the more shameful emotions. Why should she care if Adam had been disgusted? She’d made her choices, and she’d been fine with them at the time. He had no right, absolutely no right, to make her question them now.
She narrowed her eyes at Molly, directing her anger at Adam toward his sister. “He is a grown man. What occurs between us isn’t your business—he doesn’t need a mother hen flapping about.”
Molly’s eyes widened. “A mother hen!”
Julia spun to leave, but Molly’s reluctant voice reached her. “The girls would like to see you before we go. I would hope you wouldn’t let a disagreement between us deprive them of your company.” The words sounded like they’d been dragged out of her.
Julia turned slowly back. She was tempted to stalk away, but she didn’t want to disappoint Sarah and Hannah, even if they did turn her hair into a bird’s nest. “Is Adam home?” she asked.
Molly shook her head. “He already said his good-byes. He had to leave this morning to meet with a gardener at another estate.”
Julia ignored the disappointment that crashed into her stomach like waves against rock. She should be relieved. “Very well.”
They set off toward the cabin, both silent, both with racing, uneasy thoughts.
…
An hour later, after Molly and the children had left in the stage coach, Julia made her way back to the hall. She climbed the steps to her bedchamber slowly, careful of her sore ankle. And now she had a sore scalp to match the sore ankle. Sarah had braided her hair this time, and she was, impossibly, even more enthusiastic than her younger sister.
When she reached her chamber, Julia decided, sh
e would ring for a hot bath, and then she would soak in it and forget everything until the water ran cool.
She pushed open the door. And froze.
Except for the painful thudding of her heart.
Riverton was sitting on her bed.
Chapter Nine
Julia’s gasp filled the room, and for a second, it seemed as though time had halted, leaving her standing motionless in the doorway and Riverton watching her from the bed. Then time rushed forward again, and Riverton stood.
He walked past her and shut the door, making her feel very much like a caged animal.
“What in the world has happened to your hair?” he asked, turning toward her.
“You’re early,” she blurted out as she backed up a step or two.
“Only by a week. Not pleased to see me?” he asked sardonically. “I’m disappointed.”
She wondered how she’d ever thought he was handsome and dashing. The angles of his face were so symmetrical they reminded her of a knife’s blade. He had none of Adam’s good-natured humor. He was all lazy boredom and disdain. Nothing impressed him. Nothing pleased him.
What had she been thinking when she’d become his lover? But then, she knew what she’d been thinking. She’d thought he was charming. Early on, he had been charming. Not anymore.
She backed up until she was against the wall.
“I have taken another mistress,” he finally said.
She almost sagged with relief. “Indeed? Who?”
“Amelia Durant,” he said.
Julia sent up a prayer of thanks, asking God to bless the courtesan, though she assumed God didn’t listen to courtesan’s prayers, or bless them, either.
“The things that woman can do with her tongue…” He shook his head. “I should have taken a French lover years ago. No Englishwoman could hope to compare.”
She let the insult roll right off her. She only watched him warily, like she would watch a predator from a distance.
“But that leaves me with something of a dilemma,” he continued. “I’d like to keep Amelia, but there is still the little matter of our contract.”