Loving Julia

by Karen Robards

  “Ya shouldna cut me, Jool,” he said softly, as he drew his arm back, and slowly clenched his broad hand into a meaty fist. She cowered, trying to shield her face with her arms as he slammed his fist into her averted cheek, but the very first blow broke through that weak barrier. She screamed siren loud, and then continued to scream and scream as his fist hammered into her face and throat and breasts. Blood spurted from her nose and mouth, and her eyes were already swelling shut as he continued to beat her. Her screaming quieted to a dull keening, and finally even that stopped as he pummeled her with vicious blows like a pugilist with raw meat. What little she could see of the cellar through her swollen eyes was swimming crazily and she no longer even felt the pain of his continuing blows. Was he going to beat her to death? she wondered groggily. But some distant, still cognizant part of her mind heard him rip her silk dress. Then his hands were on her breasts, hard and hurtful as they squeezed. She couldn’t struggle, couldn’t even care as he ripped her clothes from her body until she was naked, then settled himself over her quiescent form. Hardly conscious of it, she felt his knees parting her thighs.

  There was a tremendous crash, and then another. Through the haze she realized the door had splintered on its hinges. Then Mick was jumping to his feet and trying to run as a veritable army burst through the shattered door. There was a brief scuffle, and then Mick cried out as his hands were wrenched behind his back and he was forced to the floor.

  Her dazed brain reeled as it tried to sort out why Smathers should be there, armed with what appeared to be a cricket bat, or why two of Sebastian’s footmen should be brandishing butcher knives. A burly stranger was calling out for them to hold Mick securely. And then she saw Sebastian himself, with a silver barreled pistol in his fist, looking toward where she lay naked and bloody on the stone floor with a frightening pain in his eyes.

  “Sebastian,” she moaned, but she couldn’t seem to focus her eyes. Besides, she remembered vaguely that he didn’t want her, didn’t love her…. Tears formed in her eyes, trickling from their corners as he knelt beside her and covered her with his coat.

  “Oh, my God. Julia,” he whispered. “Don’t cry, my love.” She was vaguely aware of him leaning over her, of him tenderly wrapping his coat around her, of him removing the snowy cravat from around his neck and using it to wipe some blood from her face. He had called her his love—was he no longer angry with her then? She tried to smile at him, although it was difficult to focus her eyes. The agony she saw in his face made her peer up at him with befuddlement.

  “Don’t be angry with me, Sebastian,” she managed on a reedy breath, and suddenly his face contorted with such pain that she shivered at the sight of it. He must have felt her shudder because his expression quickly changed to an expressionless mask that showed nothing but a suspicious glitter in his eyes.

  “I’m not angry with you, my own. Shhh, don’t try to talk now. Just be still, and we’ll get you out of here. There’s nothing for you to be afraid of anymore,” he murmured soothingly, gathering her up in his arms with infinite care as he stood. For a moment he cradled her against his chest like a hurt child, while pain and grief and a terrible anger all showed for an instant on his face.

  “Everything’s going to be all right, my love,” he whispered softly. He carried her to where the other men huddled in a group guarding the blubbering Mick. Then he gently handed her over to one of the footmen.

  “Take her out to the carriage, and stay with her,” he directed. She wanted to reach for Sebastian because only in his arms did she feel truly safe, but found she didn’t have the strength.

  George (she thought it was George) was carrying her carefully up the narrow dirty stairs when she heard Sebastian say, in quite a different voice from that which he had used with her, “You lowlife bastard!”

  She heard a dull thunk that sounded much like a blow, then another, and another. Finally, just as George got her outside and lifted her into the closed carriage, she heard the silvery echo of a pistol shot.

  Moments later, Sebastian climbed into the carriage beside her. A moonbeam glinted off the pistols that he had returned to the waistband of his pantaloons. She frowned as she tried to remember what disturbed her about their presence.

  “What … Mick …?” she tried to say, but found that she could not even manage to focus her thoughts. Besides, her mouth ached dreadfully when she tried to form words. But he must have sensed her unspoken question because he came to kneel on the floor beside her as she lay on her side on the seat, her bare arms huddled over her breasts beneath the enveloping comfort of his coat and her bare legs curled up into its sheltering skirts.

  “He won’t bother you ever again, I promise,” Sebastian said softly, his hand coming up to smooth a tangle of hair away from her swollen left eye. Julia winced, and his mouth tightened. He turned away from her, leaning out the carriage door, and said something to George who still waited outside.

  Then there was a jolt and the crack of a whip, and the carriage was moving. But Julia never knew when they reached the house in Grosvenor Square. By then she had lost consciousness, and did not regain it for three days.

  XXXV

  “It’s going to be touch and go, my lord. The fact that she has been unconscious for so long is not a good sign.”

  “Damn it, man, there must be something you can do! You’re supposed to be the best bloody sawbones in the City!”

  Sebastian’s angry voice was the first sound that penetrated the layers of fog that enclosed Julia. She tried to speak, to open her eyes at least to see who he was talking to, and why he sounded so distraught, but found she could not. She was sinking back into the fog….

  “I regret, my lord, that some things are in God’s hands only. The beating she took was most severe. As you can see, there is a great deal of damage about the head.”

  Warm hands touched her temple gently, and Julia shuddered at the pain the slight pressure caused. She tried again to let them know that she was conscious, but her body seemed incapable of following her brain’s directions.

  “You can’t just let her die!” The desperate voice was Sebastian’s. The doctor said something in reply, but she couldn’t quite understand his words. A buzzing noise began to build in her ears, sounding almost like the rushing of the tide on the rocks below the Wash. Julia had a sudden sensation of falling down into a thick black fog, and then she heard no more.

  When next she awoke, the room was pitch dark. She was alone, she thought, and yet she did not feel alone. It was as if someone was there, but she could not quite see who it was through the darkness. She stared into the inky black, trying to see … The room was cold, so cold. Someone had let the fire go out … She shivered, and then she heard a faint sound tickling at the edges of her consciousness. It seemed to be a whisper, a hoarse whisper. At first she thought it was the roaring in her ears again, but the whisper took on words and form, like a chant. It was repeated over and over, but still she couldn’t make out the words. Until at last she picked up one here, and another there….

  “Elizabeth died. So will you. Elizabeth died. So will you.” The whisper grew louder and louder, building to a harsh chorus that rang in her ears. Julia’s eyes grew wide with horror as she listened. Cold chills raced up and down her body. This could not be happening—it had to be a terrible dream.

  There was a scratching noise, and then a ghostly white glow appeared at the far end of the room. Julia stared mesmerized at the thing, realizing that the chant was originating from it. There was a swirl of white as the thing turned around, and Julia found herself staring at a white cowled figure holding a candle as it chanted. Where its face should have been she saw nothing but a void as black as death.

  Julia screamed. She was still screaming when the thing disappeared. She was still screaming when the door to her room crashed open with a bang, and Sebastian appeared, silhouetted in the open doorway. Sebastian …

  She tried to call to him, but she could not. Her hands lifted toward him in a gestur
e of supplication even as the darkness rose again to swirl her away.

  The next thing she was aware of was the sound of someone sobbing. It was such a heartbroken sound that it tugged her from the darkness. She listened to the muffled cries for a moment or two, feeling a great pity well up within her for anyone who was suffering such distress.

  With great difficulty she lifted her lids. They felt abominably heavy, and as they parted the light hurt her eyes. It was not much light, only the gentle orange glow of a fire blazing in the hearth near the bed. Other than that one source of illumination the room was shrouded in darkness. She blinked, fighting the urge to let her lids fall and merciful darkness take her. Then her eyes focused on the tousled, silver-gilt head of a man as it was cradled in his arms on the edge of her bed.

  The keening sounds were coming from Sebastian. Her hands were resting on top of the downy cream duvet that covered the bed, and her right one was not too far from that bent head. She listened to the gasping sounds he made, watched the broad shoulders heave, and felt an almost maternal urge to comfort him. Staring at that bent head, she willed her hand to move. For a moment she thought that it would not … but then it did. She rested her fingers lightly on the rough silk of his hair.

  His shoulders stiffened, and then his head came up and he was staring into her eyes. He looked a mess, she thought, unshaven and disheveled with red-rimmed eyes that glittered with tears.

  Tears. He was crying. Her cold, proud Sebastian was crying. Over her.

  “Julia…. “ His voice was hoarse. His eyes were wild with hope as they stared into hers. “Oh, God, Julia, you’re awake!”

  “Don’t cry, Sebastian.” It was a mere breath of sound. But he heard it. He caught up the slim white hand that had touched his hair and pressed his lips to it. The feeling of his warm, dry lips was a pleasant antidote to the almost unearthly cold of her skin.

  “You’re not to die!” The words were fierce, an order. That was more like her arrogant Sebastian. A faint smile trembled and then died on her lips.

  “No,” she agreed, her eyes smiling groggily at him. A faint memory tugged at her, and she frowned. The very act of frowning hurt her, and her eyes drooped shut. Why did the mere mention of dying disturb her so?

  “The White Friar,” she whispered, and he looked at her as if he feared she was losing her mind. The apparition came back to her in all its horrible detail, and she shuddered, closing her eyes.

  “Julia!” Sebastian sounded panicked. Julia opened her eyes again to blink at him. Why was he so frightened?

  “I hurt,” she whispered, and he visibly flinched.

  “I know you do, my own, but you’ll be better, much better, soon.”

  “What happened?” She couldn’t quite remember, although something was niggling at the edges of her consciousness. Something painful….

  “You were beaten. You’ll be all right.” The syllables were clipped, the glittering eyes fierce as they bore into hers. His very vehemence told Julia that he had some doubts about it—was she going to die? The White Friar had come for her. She shuddered. But that was only a bad dream. She wouldn’t frighten Sebastian more by telling him about it.

  “Mick,” she whispered, remembering. Her eyelids drooped as her body instinctively tried to block out the remembered horror with darkness.

  “Don’t you dare leave me again! Julia, do you hear me?”

  The fear in Sebastian’s voice brought her eyelids fluttering open. His face was so dear to her, she thought as her eyes focused lovingly on him. Even unshaven and dirty and tear stained, he was still the most handsome man she had ever seen. And he was hers—or he had been.

  “Are you still angry with me, Sebastian?” The sad little whisper made him flinch. He blinked once, twice, as though to hold back the tears that made his eyes glitter like diamonds in the flickering light. His hand tightened around her fingers and he brought them to his lips again.

  “That you could ask me that …” His voice broke, and for a moment he couldn’t continue. Then he seemed to get a grip on his emotions, for he went on in a low, husky rush. “No, Julia, I’m not angry with you. I never should have been angry with you. When my mother told me you had sneaked off into my study to be alone with Carlyle and I found you there kissing him, letting him touch you, I went a little crazy. I didn’t stop to think that the Julia I loved was incapable of the kind of convoluted deceit I’d spent most of my life watching. I was so jealous I didn’t stop to think anything at all. I just wanted to kill Carlyle—and hurt you as much as I was hurting. And I did. I did hurt you. I hurt you mentally, and I hurt you physically. But if it’s any consolation to you, you hurt me as much. Every time I close my eyes I can see your white face as you stared down the vultures of society that I had turned loose on you. You were every inch a lady, my own. I was never so proud of you as when I saw you walking toward that crowd with your head high and your back straight. And I can see you too, lying on that cellar floor, hurt and crying because I had made you run from me…. Christ, Julia, I’m sorry. If I could redo it I would—but I can’t. I can only ask you to forgive me. Please.”

  He whispered the last word, and his eyes clung to hers, pleading with her. She looked at him for a long moment, her eyes tender as they touched on every plane and angle of that beautiful face. Then the hand he was holding turned in his, and her fingers wrapped his warmly.

  “I love you, Sebastian. There’s nothing to forgive.”

  He closed his eyes briefly, and a single tear trickled down the lean hard cheek. Julia felt her heart ache as she looked at him. He was so beautiful—like one of the Lord’s archangels, she had thought when she had first set eyes on him. Now she knew that if he was an angel at all, it was a very tattered and shabby one, halo severely dented by numerous falls from grace. But his flaws were part of the man and she loved him. More than anything in her life, more than her life itself. It seemed like she always had, and she knew that she always would. Despite anything and everything.

  “I’ll make it up to you, my own, I swear it.” His eyes had the fierce zeal of the confessional as they bore into hers. “I’ll be so good to you. You’ll have everything you ever wanted. Clothes, carriages, servants, anything.”

  The only affection he had had in the past had been the kind he had had to buy, she remembered. To him material things were the currency of love. But she would teach him better, if it took her the rest of her life. And his.

  “I only want you, Sebastian. Nothing else. I love you.” She said the words patiently, as if she knew she would be repeating them many, many times over the years. Then she blinked as his face seemed to recede and then draw closer again. The buzzing was suddenly back in her ears.

  “Sebastian,” she said faintly, clutching his hand. She was afraid to give in to the darkness again, afraid of what might await her in it. But even his warm grip could not keep her from the swirling void that opened up to claim her.

  “Julia!” She heard him calling her with fear in his voice, missed the warmth of his hand as it abruptly disengaged from hers, heard the bang of her door crashing on its hinges and Sebastian’s voice bellowing. “Wake that damned sawbones and get him in here!”

  And then the darkness caught her again and she heard nothing more.

  XXXVI

  “How are you feeling this morning, my love?”

  It was nearly three weeks later. Julia, clad in a demure blue sprigged white nightgown with a little frill of lace around the neck, was propped up in the four poster bed in her room at White Friars. Despite Sebastian’s fears she had made a fairly rapid recovery since her first brief return to consciousness. The next day she had woken to sip a little broth, and when she had closed her eyes again it had been to sleep. Since then she had been growing stronger each day.

  As soon as she had been fit to travel, Sebastian had brought her into the country to recuperate. She would do better in the fresh air of Norfolk, he told her, and she agreed. London was a bad memory to put behind her; White Friars beckoned
like home.

  Sebastian accompanied her, riding in the closed carriage with her throughout the two-day trip when she knew he would have preferred by far to drive himself or ride astride. She was blissfully happy despite the injuries that made her wince at every jolt. He loved her, and he showed it with every look and gesture, and that was all that mattered to her.

  Since arriving at White Friars, he had pampered and cosseted her, insisting that she remain in bed. She did so to please him, even though she was feeling much better every day. She smiled to herself as she watched him through the day—dismissing Emily in the mornings to bring her chocolate and rolls himself, spending the afternoons reading newspapers aloud to her when she knew that he must be going crazy from so much inactivity. At White Friars he was accustomed to spending much of the time out-of-doors, and the early June weather was glorious. Julia found this evidence of his devotion both touching and secretly amusing. Knowing Sebastian, she was sure that such solicitude could not last too much longer.

  “I’m fine, Sebastian. Really.” She smiled at him as he carefully deposited the breakfast tray across her knees. He bent to drop a gentle kiss on the side of her mouth, then straightened to look down at her critically.

  “You look a little better,” he admitted. “At least you don’t still have huge purple and black rings around both eyes. They’ve faded to kind of a yellowish gray. Very becoming.”

  “Thank you, kind sir.” Though her voice was wry, she dimpled at him, trying not to wince as the smile made her bruised cheeks ache. Every evidence of her pain hurt him more than it did herself, she knew. She patted the bed beside her, and he sat down where she indicated, accepting a roll she proffered. She watched him fondly as he munched, marveling as she always did at his good looks. Today, dressed in baggy tweed coat and suede pantaloons that on any other man would have merely looked comfortably sloppy, he was the very picture of the elegant aristocrat in the country. It would be interesting to see over the course of the next thirty or so years if there were any circumstances under which he could look less than handsome.