“I was picturing you with a pot belly,” she answered, and he almost choked on his bacon.
“God forbid,” he said with loathing, and Julia’s smile broadened.
“I think I would like it,” she said, and his eyes narrowed on her.
“Well, I would not,” he answered crisply. “Which brings us to the subject I wished to talk with you about.”
“Does it?” she said, sounding polite though her motive was to tease him. “How interesting! You wish to talk to me about something to do with your incipient pot belly?”
He put down his fork and stared at her with such disdain that she would immediately have been chastened—if she had not known that he deliberately used that look when he wished to achieve just that effect.
“I understand that you had words with my mother last night,” he said after a moment. With some difficulty Julia resisted an urge to stick out her tongue at him. It was strange how Jewel Combs seemed to pop up in her when she least expected it.
“News certainly travels fast around here, doesn’t it?” Julia was still deliberately trying to get a rise out of him. He had been so distant since she had arrived in this house—and she was tired of him being distant.
“From Caroline to her maid to Leister to me,” Sebastian responded. “There is no need for you to take up cudgels on my behalf. I am perfectly capable of defending myself should I feel the need.”
“I cannot sit there and listen to that woman say such things about you,” Julia muttered. “It makes me want to slap her. Besides, I was defending Chloe as much as you.”
“I thank you for your championship on my daughter’s behalf as well as my own, but in future I wish you would not. Agreed?”
“No, we are not agreed! If you wish to allow your mother to say that you are an unnatural son and father and cold and cruel and incapable of affection, then you may do so. But if she says such things in my presence, then I reserve the right to protest!”
Sebastian put down his fork and stared at her. She was delighted to see that he looked faintly exasperated.
“Does it not occur to you that my mother may be speaking nothing more than the truth, in my case at least?”
Julia took another bite of toast, chewed, swallowed, and met his eyes. “No, it does not. You are many things—including a distrusting, dishonest swine—but you are not incapable of affection. You are fond of Chloe, for one—no, don’t deny it, I have seen the evidence with my own eyes. And I believe you are fond of me.”
His eyes widened at this last. They gleamed very blue suddenly as they stared at her. “Do you indeed?”
The soft syllables were as much a warning as the hissing of a snake. Julia met those blue eyes dauntlessly. Faint heart did never win fair maiden, she reminded herself—or in this case fair gentleman.
“You are just afraid to admit it.”
“On the contrary, I am not the least afraid to admit that I am, as you say, fond of you—at least in a particular way.” The leer that he offered her in accompaniment to this last made hot color wash into Julia’s face. But she refused to allow any other outward sign of embarrassment to show.
“And I am fond of you in that way, too,” she said cordially, taking a sip of her tea with as much calm as if they were discussing the weather. “But I rather think that there is more to our feeling for one another than that.”
He was looking at her now with the icy mask back in place so that she could not read anything in those glacial blue eyes.
“You are, of course, entitled to your opinion.” With deliberate care he touched his lips with his napkin, then laid it down beside his plate before getting to his feet. “If you will excuse me, I have things to attend to.” And before she could answer, he was striding from the room.
Julia reacted to this flagrant breach of good manners—a gentleman never left a lady sitting at a table—with a tiny smile. The smile widened as her eyes found his barely touched plate.
XXV
London at the height of the season was a whirl of sights and activities. There was shopping, of course, as Julia found the vast wardrobe which she had bespoke from Madame de Tissaud was not nearly so vast after all. There were visits to the Pantheon Bazaar, the lending library, and the theatre. Nary a day went by when there was not a breakfast party, a picnic, a soiree or a ball.
In addition, there were the afternoon outings in Hyde Park, which were de rigueur whenever the weather permitted. Ladies in their rainbow-hued dresses, sporting fetching bonnets and kid gloves and carrying jaunty parasols, bowled through the park in their open carriages, the object being to see and be seen by as many fashionables as possible. Those with good seats were on horseback, to better show off this advantage they had over their less gifted sisters.
The gentlemen came, too, just a tad less brightly dressed than their ladies, some on horseback, some on foot hoping to be invited to ride with the lady of their choice, and some showing off sporting carriages. Even the occasional Cyprian turned out, taking the air in a carriage bestowed upon her by some lord in payment for services rendered, gaudily dressed and sassy as she waved at those of the gentlemen whom she knew. These horrified gentlemen generally pretended to be conveniently afflicted by blindness. Although the ton’s ladies were aware that their men were acquainted with all manner of undesirable females, they too pretended a convenient ignorance on this subject, which the gentlemen were pleased to encourage. The park was one of the few places where the two sides of a man’s life might meet. It was a horrible fact of fashionable life.
It was a warm sunny day in late April, and Julia was seated in Lord Carlyle’s carriage as he guided it carefully through the park. The main thoroughfare was packed with traffic and, as Lord Carlyle had to weave his horses in and out of the laughing, calling throng, conversation between him and Julia was desultory.
Julia was very pleased with herself as she waved demurely at acquaintances. She was looking very fine, she knew, both from her mirror and because Lord Carlyle told her so. She wore a dress of sapphire blue sarcenet, styled with the new narrower skirt and topped with a cunning little jacket made of the same material. A wide, flat-crowned hat of chipped straw trimmed with flowers and ribbons in the same shade of blue was perched on her head, its three-inch wide ribbons tied in a jaunty bow beneath one ear. She was not carrying a parasol, but that was because she had no need of one. The hat served the dual purpose of framing her face charmingly while at the same time shielding it from the sun.
But her appearance was not the only reason why Julia was feeling so cheerful. There was also the fact that her plan to become part of the ton was an unqualified success. In the brief time she had been in town, the haute monde had ceased to treat her as a newcomer. She was now an accepted member of Society, and was included without question in any invitations addressed to the Peyton ladies. Lord Carlyle was paying her what Caroline assured her was determined court, and she also had a satisfactory number of other admirers who gathered around her at parties and filled her dance cards so that she had never yet suffered the ignominy of having to sit out a dance.
The only fly in her ointment was that Sebastian was apparently unaware of the scope of her success. He never attended the ton’s functions, either from a sensitivity toward the Turkish treatment sure to be accorded him by some of the sticklers, or from simple distaste for the social whirl. Thus he did not witness the small crowd of gentlemen she invariably gathered around herself, or the smiles that the very ladies who would cut his acquaintance bestowed on her.
Which was funny when she thought about it. Here was she, the former Jewel Combs (although she hardly ever allowed herself to remember it), now an accepted member of Society. And all the while he, the earl born and a gentleman to his fingertips, was to all intents and purposes an outcast from the society to which he belonged by birth.
“The park is very crowded today.” This observation was the first that Lord Carlyle had offered in quite a few minutes. Julia smiled at him. He was not a talkative gentleman
, but she liked him, a liking that was not harmed by her knowledge that it was considered quite a feather in her cap to have attached him. And besides, he was a very attractive man, himself.
“Yes, indeed it is.” Julia responded with a smile. “I don’t know how you manage to keep us on the road. There is scarcely any room at all. With any other gentleman I would quite fear being overturned.”
“You need have no fear of that when you are with me. I would never overturn one so lovely as you. Why, think of the affront to your dignity! Every feeling is offended.”
“And besides that, I would undoubtedly land in the mud, and my beautiful dress would be quite ruined.” The mournful tone of this last made him burst out laughing.
“That is quite why I like you, you know,” he said with a sideways smile at her. “You are the most totally unaffected female it has ever been my privilege to meet! Your parents must have been most unusual to have raised such a daughter. Tell me, what were they like?”
She had already told him that both parents were dead. Now he was pressing for details, and she had none to give him. The story she had concocted, and which had been agreed upon icily by the dowager countess and with much frowning memorization by Caroline, came with difficulty to her lips. She did not like to lie to Lord Carlyle. She liked him too much.
“My mother was a very kind, warm person. My father I don’t remember at all. As you know, he died when I was very young.”
“What was his name?”
Julia’s eyes rolled around desperately as she searched for some way to end the conversation.
“Howard. Howard Frame.” Frame was a very common name in England, Julia had learned, its members scattered across the country and occupying every walk of life.
“One of the Yorkshire Frames?” Lord Carlyle was quietly persistent. Julia gave up. She hated to lie, so she turned the tables on him.
“You are very interested in my antecedents, my lord,” she said with what she hoped was a gay smile.
He smiled back at her. “Indeed I am. I had not meant to speak of this so soon, but it is my hope that one day your antecedents will be joined with mine through posterity.”
Julia’s brow knitted as she unraveled that. The only way that that could happen was if they had children together. At the realization her eyes rounded, and leaped out to meet his. He was still smiling at her, the swine.
“I wish you will take me home now, my lord.” Sebastian’s examples of arctic rage stood her in good stead now. She wanted to denounce Lord Carlyle furiously, but Hyde Park was no place for such a display. Her hands clenched in her lap as she glared at him, letting her eyes say all that her lips could not.
“I have offended you? Mrs. Stratham, I apologize.” He sounded bewildered. “I realize that we have not been acquainted long, and indeed I had not meant to speak so soon, but I thought you must surely have some glimmer of how I felt.”
“If I had had such a glimmer, my lord, you may rest assured that I would not now be sitting in your carriage!” This furious mutter brought a frown to Lord Carlyle’s face.
“You are angry with me,” he said, sounding surprised. Julia glared at him in silent confirmation. She had never, ever thought to be insulted so as Julia Stratham, lady. Perhaps he sensed something about her, perhaps Jewel Combs showed through despite all the care to eradicate her.
“I know I should have spoken to your guardian first,” Lord Carlyle said rapidly. “But I have never been intimate with Lord Moorland and given, uh, his circumstances, I have felt awkward about approaching him. Not that you are in any way to blame for that rackety fellow, of course. One cannot help one’s relatives, after all.”
“You were going to approach Seb—, Lord Moorland, with this?” Julia’s mind boggled at the thought. Sebastian’s reaction to such a proposal did not bear thinking of given his present state of mind.
Lord Carlyle looked surprised. “It is the proper thing to do, after all.”
The proper thing to do … Julia’s mind reeled. Then the tiniest glimmer of realization began to shine through.
“If I had realized that you were so averse to the very idea,” he said, his voice as stiff as his face, “I would never have broached the subject. I hope we may still be friends, even if you will not be my wife?”
“You are asking me to marry you?” Her stunned tone brought his head, which had been averted, swinging around. She looked up into that broad, darkly-complected face with the soft gray eyes and felt a kind of shame. Of course, he was asking her to be his wife. A gentleman such as Lord Carlyle would never, ever insult a lady by suggesting that she become his mistress.
Lord Carlyle looked down at her with lifted brows. “Well, of course I am asking you to marry me. What else have we been talking about these last few minutes?”
Julia smiled suddenly, brilliantly. She had gotten the situation entirely wrong. Instead of insulting her, he was doing her the ultimate honor. He was asking her, Julia Stratham, to be his wife. He had not even suspected Jewel Combs’ existence.
In response to her directive to be taken home, he was turning the carriage out of the press of traffic toward the gates. This maneuver was not accomplished without a near brush of the wheels with a high-perch phaeton, and an exchange of glares with its driver, a dashingly dressed young gentleman in a spotted neckcloth. By the time Lord Carlyle had his carriage bowling toward the gates, Julia had recovered from her astonishment. She laid a gentle hand on his gray superfine clad arm, and when he bent an inquiring glance upon her, she smiled guilelessly.
“I must apologize for my intemperate reaction to your proposal, my lord,” she murmured with an air of embarrassed modesty. “To tell the truth, it was not until we reached the end of the conversation that I realized what it was you had asked. I’m ashamed to have to confess that I was wool gathering at the start of it.”
Lord Carlyle grinned, looking suddenly very much younger than what Julia guessed were his forty years. “You did not realize that you were being proposed to?”
Julia shook her head. “No, my lord, I fear I did not. I must apologize.”
“And I thought it was my children,” he muttered, shaking his head. “Or my person. Or….”
“It was none of those things, my lord,” Julia interrupted gently. “I have no objection to your children. At least, I don’t think I do, though never having met them I can’t say for certain. And as for your person,” she cast down her eyes modestly, in a way that would have made Sebastian shout with cynical laughter, “I find it—not displeasing.”
“Am I to take it then, that you are not rejecting my suit out of hand?”
“N-no.” Julia had plans of her own where Lord Carlyle was concerned, but she liked him and did not want to hurt him. Encouraging him with the object of enraging Sebastian was one thing. Actually accepting a proposal of marriage from him was something else. The phrase Mrs. Thomas had drummed into her head popped up on the tip of her tongue, and she uttered it with relief. The strict rules governing the actions and utterances of those in Society had their advantages, she thought, when they provided one with something so pat to say.
“It is just that this is all so sudden, my lord.” Her eyes fluttered up to look at him, and she was surprised to see a sudden flare of passion in them. It was quickly banked, but she was slightly shaken by it. Managing Lord Carlyle might be more difficult than she had anticipated. For a moment he had looked very much as if he would have liked to kiss her.
“But I may hope?” His well modulated voice was a note deeper than usual.
Julia looked up to meet kind gray eyes and felt a warming toward him. She really did like this man. Marrying him would be the most sensible thing she had ever done in her life. As Lady Carlyle there would never be any uncertainty about where she belonged in life. Then, unbidden, Sebastian’s too beautiful face appeared in her mind’s eye. He was unprincipled, mean tempered, cold, and insulting, but she loved him, and while there was breath in her body or his she knew she could never give her
self to another man.
“One may always hope.” Accompanied as it was by a demure smile, this statement satisfied Lord Carlyle as a coy affirmative. And she was not actually lying, Julia consoled her conscience. After all, who knew what twists and turns life might take?
“Now that we are friends again, do you still wish me to take you home? It is quite early yet.” The carriage was about to pull out of the Park Lane into Piccadilly. The road was, as usual, packed with traffic while the sidewalks teemed with pedestrians and vendors pushing hand carts.
“Perhaps you’d better,” Julia said with a smile. “If we are to attend the theatre this evening, I shall have to rest beforehand or I fear I shall look quite haggard.”
He laughed. “You could never look haggard, Mrs. Stratham. Your youthful beauty is such that would defy the most sleepless night.”
“Why, thank you, Lord Carlyle.”
Such badinage as this was the staple of the interaction between the sexes in the polite world. To Julia it was almost second nature now. She dimpled as she said the words, her eyes already fixed on the press of carriages as Lord Carlyle expertly maneuvered his rig out to join them.
She was just about to say something else when her eye was caught by a gleaming black curricle with overlarge wheels and a natty leather interior just ahead of them. It was Sebastian’s vehicle with Jenkins up behind. As Lord Carlyle’s equipage drew nearly abreast of it, she saw that Sebastian, looking lean and powerful and incredibly handsome in a coat of pale blue bathcloth, was handling the reins. But even as the sun gleaming off his silver-gilt hair caught her eye and distracted her, she saw that he was not alone.
Beside him was a lady in an almost indecently low cut dress of palest pink, with a deep flounce across the bodice, baring her shoulders and much of her generous bosom. If one was attracted to avaricious blondes in full bloom, then Julia supposed that the lady must be considered quite beautiful, although personally
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