Julia saw a betraying hint of moisture in his eyes, and despite all her good intentions could not keep from going to him.
Her skirts rustled as she crossed quickly to his side. He was stiff and resisting at first as her arms went around his waist, but as she pressed against him in a wordless gesture of comfort his arms came around her. He held her close, his voice not quite steady as he bent his head to finish with a near whisper in her ear.
“When you showed up in my hallway that day, looking like a cross between a third-rate Cyprian and a drowned rat, I thought I didn’t need anyone. I was totally self-sufficient and I liked it that way. Oh, I had friends, of course, as everyone does, but they were really just acquaintances. In all the world there was not a single soul who really gave a damn if I lived or died. And then you came.
“If my mother hadn’t come into my study that day, I probably would have had you thrown back out into the streets. Those marriage lines you showed me were not worth very much when it came right down to it. You would have had the devil’s own time claiming anything with them. But I didn’t have you thrown out. I took you down to White Friars with me because I couldn’t think of anything else to do with you—I was already regretting the impulse that had caused me to let you stay. But you were a funny little thing, and I ended up quite liking you. And then you turned into a raving beauty…. I should have seen my Waterloo coming. In fact, I probably did. I just refused to recognize it. You were a virgin that night and I knew it, and I wouldn’t admit it even to myself. I told myself that I had to be wrong about the physical signs because no virgin could have responded the way you did. You were all fire, my own, and you set me aflame, too. My reaction terrified me. I wanted more, much more. So I ran, and I’ve been running ever since. Until yesterday, when I realized that I was all alone in a cold gray world, and I was tired of being alone. I wanted to warm myself at a fire—and that fire was you.
I wanted to hold you and kiss you and never let you go as long as either of us lived. I wanted you to love me, and I wanted to love you.”
As he finished his voice got lower and lower until at the end it was barely audible. But Julia heard. She heard, and wept inwardly at every syllable. Her proud Sebastian, always needing love and never finding it, had gotten so he feared the very thing he craved. He had treated her as he had because he had been emotionally scalded too many times. Even now he sounded as if he were afraid to risk his heart again.
“I do love you, Julia,” he muttered into her hair, and Julia felt her heart swell and ache with the sweet pain of it. Her arms tightened around him, hugging him to her, and she turned her head so that her face nuzzled into the warm sandpaper skin of his neck just below his ear.
“And I love you, my darling,” she whispered, pressing her lips into the soft place where his vein pulsed with telltale urgency. His arms enwrapped her so tightly that she feared he might crush her, and then his head was turning and his mouth was seeking hers.
This time when they made love, there was a feverish urgency to their passion. He took and she gave, and she took and he gave. Their bodies clung to each other with fierce tenderness, and when they came shuddering back to earth together they barely had time to catch their breath before the need that drove them reared its head again. They made love again and again until at last dawn was lighting the sky with pink streaks and the first faint stirrings of a new day were heard in the street outside the window.
Sated, they lay together in the huge bed, their naked bodies pressed together beneath the single sheet that was the only covering they could bear, their hearts finally slowing to something resembling a normal rhythm. Julia, sleepy-eyed and heavy limbed, lay with her head on Sebastian’s shoulder and one hand pressed into the nest of fur on his chest. Sebastian was flat on his back, one arm beneath his head and the other around Julia. His hair was ruffled, and the dark beginnings of a beard shadowed his cheeks and jaw. He looked gorgeously raffish, Julia thought as she looked up at him, and could not forbear pressing a soft kiss into the sandpapered underside of his jaw.
“You are insatiable, woman.” He turned his head to smile down at her as he spoke.
“Mmmm.” It was a purring, contented agreement. Beneath the sheet Julia’s hand moved lazily down the hard muscled contours she had come to know so well during the long and tumultuous night. The flat muscles of his abdomen contracted as she stroked them, and even as her fingers lazily circled his belly button she could feel the rising tautness that spoke as no words could have of his hunger for her.
“So are you,” she added with a glimmering upward slant of her eyes. He pulled her hand away and brought it to his mouth, kissing it lightly before pressing it back to his chest.
“I hate to disappoint you, my own, but we have to get up.”
“Do we?” The provocative whisper was accompanied by her fingers heading off an another foray into newly charted territory. They were firmly recaptured, and this time held.
“Yes, we do.” His voice left no room for argument.
Julia nipped his neck with her teeth in punishment. He yelped, and rolled so that she was pressed down into the bed and he was looming over her. The possibilities inherent in the position pleased her, and she smiled at him with promises in her eyes.
“None of that, now. We’ve got to get you back to Grosvenor Square before there’s more of a scandal than there’s bound to be already. There’ll be talk about the way I spirited you off as it is, but we can always say that I came to fetch you on urgent family business.”
“I don’t care about scandal.” She moved against him with sensuous enticement. His muscles tightened in answer and a half-smile played about his lips, but he shook his head.
“I do. I won’t have the entire ton gossiping about the future Countess of Moorland more than I can help.”
Julia went very still suddenly, her golden eyes huge as they stared up into his.
“Sebastian,” she said faintly after a moment. “Are you asking me to marry you?”
He looked down at her, a frown gathering on his brow.
“Hell, no.” The blunt words were like blows to her heart. Then he smiled, a sweet and charming smile such as she had rarely seen on his face. Despite the disordered hair and stubbled cheeks, or perhaps because of them, he looked so breathtakingly handsome in that moment that she felt her breath catch. “I thought I took care of that last night.”
Julia, feeling dazed and not quite sure she was hearing what she thought she was hearing, shook her head. “No.”
The smile died from his lips, but his eyes were very tender as they looked down into hers. “What did you think last night was all about then?”
“I didn’t know.” The words were scarcely more than a whisper. Then, from the fountain of her love for him and the knowledge of the lack of birth that made her ineligible to be his wife sprang the courage to deny herself what she wanted most in life. “You don’t have to do this, you know, Sebastian. You don’t have to marry me. I’ll be your mistress if you like, for as long as you like.”
He scowled at her, his blue eyes turning menacing. “What kind of nonsense are you talking now? I thought you said you loved me!”
“I do! You know I do. But—but, Sebastian, we both know that Julia Stratham is just someone you made up. I’m not her, not really. You’re an earl, a member of the nobility, and I know you have a duty to your name. I’m—a mongrel. My mother was an actress, and my father could have been anyone as far as I know. I—”
“Shut up.” His voice was fierce. “If what you’re trying to say is that you’re not good enough for me, then I’m ashamed of you. Where’s the spitfire who used to look down her nose at me, and call me names? Is she gone completely, forced out by the lady we’ve created between us? If so, then I’m sorry. I liked that chit, and I won’t have you apologizing for her. Do you understand me?”
Julia felt suitably abashed at the savageness of his tone.
“I’m sorry, Sebastian,” she said in a small voice.
His frown lessened, but he still looked severe. “And so you should be. Offer to be my mistress indeed! You’ve a sad lack of morals, my girl, and you should be thankful I don’t beat you.”
“But, Sebastian, are you sure you want to marry me?” Her voice was tiny. But she had to say it, despite his displeasure. Now that she was on the verge of achieving her dream, she realized that the tactics she had resorted to to fix his interest had backfired on her. She wanted, oh she wanted, to believe that he genuinely loved her enough to overlook her background and hundreds of years of prejudice to marry her. But it was fatally easy to wonder if she had merely caught him by the masterly use of feminine wiles. Oliver’s proposal might well have acted as the final spur.
“Oliver!” she squeaked the name. From the moment she had seen Sebastian at the ball until this instant she had not given Oliver a thought. Now she did, and she was horrified. She had promised to wed him in two days—no, one day, now—she thought feverishly. And instead she had run out on him at the ball the night before. He would be furious and rightly so. She would have to explain—what? That now she would be marrying Sebastian instead?
“Oliver!” Sebastian stiffened and sat up on the edge of the bed, scowling down at her out of storm-darkened eyes. “I’m making you an offer, and you’re thinking of Oliver?” The terrible mockery in his voice as he said the other man’s name told her how near he was to losing his temper. Unlike Oliver, Julia remembered, Sebastian was prone to jealousy. In fact, if the glower on his face was anything to go by, he was extremely prone to it.
“I just remembered that he had his name down for the last dance last night. He—he must have wondered what on earth had become of me.” The excuse rang lame even in her own ears. Sebastian’s scowl did not lessen by so much as a single degree.
“So?” The brutal syllable warned her that if she could not smooth him down, an explosion was imminent. The knowledge that he loved her enough to be so fiercely jealous was warming, but she did not want to deal with a furious Sebastian, especially over so paltry a cause. Oliver meant less to her than Sebastian’s little finger.
“So nothing,” she answered meekly. “He—he just happened to pop into my head, that’s all.”
“See that he doesn’t again.” It was an order.
Julia bowed her head in contrite acquiescence. No need to trouble Sebastian with the details of her plans for Oliver which were all over now, of course. All she had to do was tell Oliver.
“You did tell him that you were not going to marry him, I presume?” The rapier question, uttered in a tone of extreme displeasure, rattled Julia. She wet her lips, saw his eyes following the telltale movement, and hurried into speech.
“Of course I did.”
He eyed her for a moment before his frown slowly relaxed. His expression was still stern, but he no longer looked on the verge of doing someone a violence.
“Good. I don’t want to hear his name on your lips again, is that clear?”
Despite her newly found meekness, that dictate brought a little of her own temper rushing to the fore.
“You don’t own me, you know, Sebastian.” A touch of rebellion glimmered in her eyes. Despite her love for him, if he thought she was just going to lie down and play doormat for him to walk on for the rest of their lives he had another think coming.
He turned suddenly, catching her wrists in his hands and looming over her so that she was pinned to the bed. The sheet had been pulled away from her breasts by his sudden movement, and she lay bare to the waist, her long black hair loose and tousled by their exertions of the night. Her straight black brows met in a forbidding frown over those golden eyes, and her soft rose pink lips were compressed above her obstinate little chin.
His eyes roved over her, moving from her face to the smooth white column of her throat to the narrow shoulders with their prominent collarbones, then slid down to rest on the strawberry tipped mounds of her breasts standing out above the delicate rib cage and narrow waist before coming back up to meet her eyes.
“Oh, yes,” he said low, his eyes fixing her with a burning possessiveness that shook her with its intensity. “You’re mine now. Never mistake it. You’re mine, and I’ll drag you down into hell with me before I’ll ever let you go.”
She stared up at him, not sure she liked being the object of such savage passion. Those blue eyes bore into hers relentlessly, pinning her just as his hands pinned her wrists to the bed. She felt anger start to gather inside her like clouds before a storm, then suddenly she thought of the lonely little boy he had been once. In all his life he had never really had anyone to love, and now he loved her. Of course he was jealous, of course he was possessive. If she wanted him—and she did, oh, how she did!—this was a part of him she would have to accept. Until perhaps one day he felt sure enough of her love not to have to guard it so fiercely.
“I love you,” she whispered. He glared at her for a moment longer before the fierce look slowly began to fade. “And I’ll marry you whenever you say—if you’ll just let go of my wrists.” She added the last with a wry smile.
He looked surprised, as if he hadn’t known he was holding them, and then smiled sheepishly himself, as he released his harsh grip. Julia sat up, not minding a bit about her nakedness as she rubbed her wrists and gave him an admonishing look at the same time.
“You hurt me, you know.”
“I’m sorry.” He picked up each wrist in turn and pressed a gentle kiss on it at the point where the fine blue veins traced through her milky skin. “You should have told me. I would never intentionally hurt you.”
“I know.” She smiled at him, stretched out her arms to encircle his neck and pull his head closer. He came to her willingly, and returned her soft kiss with interest.
“We don’t have to go this minute, do we?” she whispered. And, with more kisses, he agreed that they didn’t.
XXXI
The rest of the day passed in a glow of happiness for Julia. She couldn’t believe that Sebastian loved her, or that he wanted her to be his wife—but he did. She hugged the knowledge to her like a child with a lovey.
Sebastian sneaked her back into the house on Grosvenor Square with none of the servants the wiser. He opened the door with his own key, and they crept through the hall and up the stairs like wayward children. Everything went smoothly, except that Julia had difficulty holding back a nervous attack of the giggles. She had just made it to her room and managed to get out of the gold balldress (which Sebastian, who had acted as lady’s maid when they dressed, had left partly unfastened so that she could get out of it alone), put on her nightrail and get into bed before Emily entered with her morning meal of chocolate and rolls. Julia felt absurdly guilty at first, but Emily seemed to notice nothing amiss, just clucking to herself over the state of the gorgeous ballgown that Julia in her haste had dropped to the floor as she stepped out of it.
“You should have rung for me when you got home, Miss Julia,” Emily said with mild reproach, shaking out the dress and restoring it lovingly to the tall mahogany wardrobe.
“It was very late, and I didn’t want to disturb you,” Julia said with perfect truth as she sipped her chocolate. Considering that she had had no sleep at all, she felt surprisingly, wide awake and glowing with energy. Amazing what an effect love had on her, she thought with an inward giggle. She wondered then if Sebastian felt as marvelous as she did, or if he had collapsed on his bed and was even now sound asleep.
“Are you ready for your bath now, Miss Julia?” Emily asked, bringing her back to reality. Julia nodded, not one whit sorry to be brought back. After all, she no longer had to dream of Sebastian because he was hers, hers! And thus started another day.
It was nearing the noon hour before Julia finally came downstairs. She had dawdled over her toilette, partly because it had occurred to her as she was dressing that there might be an awkward scene with the dowager countess and, to a lesser extent, Caroline. Those two ladies had seen Sebastian spirit her away and would know perfectl
y well that the fiction they had decided to tell anyone else who inquired—that he had brought her bad news from a relative—was patently untrue. But they had to be faced sometime, as did Oliver. She would have to inform him of her change of heart and plans without Sebastian being any the wiser. Sebastian would undoubtedly fly into a rage if he were to discover just how very far advanced were the arrangements to make her Lady Carlyle.
Hiding away in her room would serve no purpose. She had to go downstairs and face the music, and at the same time contrive a way to meet with Oliver without Sebastian’s knowledge. Which might, if Sebastian chose to be possessive, prove difficult. But she felt she owed Oliver more than to acquaint him with such news at a public gathering. Perhaps she could send him a note? No, she couldn’t do that either. She owed it to Oliver to break off their engagement face to face.
There were numerous servants scurrying about the first and ground floors, polishing and sweeping and moving furniture about with a great deal of muffled noise. Julia checked in her descent of the stairs, staring down at all this unaccustomed activity. Then she remembered that evening Caroline was holding a rout. What awkward timing, Julia thought before realizing it was probably better to get it over with. She would have to face the curious and malicious out to make what scandal they could from last night sometime, and where better to do it than in her own home? If she just held her head up and presented a composed front to those who might question her, the whole incident would soon be forgotten.
“Miss Julia, his lordship left a message for you.” Smathers was following two footmen laden with enormous arrangements of hothouse flowers. Upon seeing Julia on the stairs, he fumbled in his pocket and came up with a folded scrap of paper. Julia accepted it from him with a smile and a thank you, then took it into the morning room to read.
Loving Julia Page 29