The Danice Allen Anthology

by Danice Allen

  Despite his sure conviction that it would be wrong, he knew that if he stayed another moment he would go to her. He knew, too, that Sam saw his hesitancy. He saw her face light up with hope and joy. She reached out a hand with the palm upturned. “Please come to me, Julian,” she said. “It’s all right, you know. Because … because I love you.”

  That stopped him.

  He dropped his gaze to the floor and turned away. As he slipped through the door and into the hall, he murmured, “Good night, brat.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Julian was out of sorts. He’d had the devil of a night. He’d got roaring drunk and was suffering for it now with a lion-sized headache. As well, he’d barely slept a wink and had dreamed nonstop of Sam during the rare, fitful moments of actual slumber.

  Drifting in and out of his disjointed dreams, sometimes Julian was with Sam at home, sometimes at Hyde Park, sometimes at the theater or an elegant dinner party. But in every setting he conjured up, Sam was always … naked.

  Oh, she had her accessories … her fan, her pearl necklace and earrings, her reticule, even her shoes. And he’d have to say he’d never seen her hair more fetchingly coiffed. But between the neck and the ankles, Sam wasn’t wearing a stitch.

  As well, no one else in these oh-so-vivid dreams seemed to notice anything amiss … least of all Sam. She chatted and laughed, batted her lashes and fluttered her fan in her usual playful fashion, and none of the men that swarmed about her in admiration showed any signs of noticing that she was without clothes.

  But Julian noticed. And he always woke up sweating and aroused. Damn.

  But what else could he expect? he asked himself, sitting at the breakfast table alone the following morning. Last night when she’d dropped her towel and invited him to bathe with her, it had taken every ounce of self-control to refuse her.

  Standing there with her arm outstretched, her skin so smooth and white, she had looked like a Greek statue. She was even more beautiful than he had imagined. Her breasts were small, creamy, rose-tipped globes. Her hips were boyishly slim, her waist was tiny, and those long, long legs of hers … Bloody Hell!

  Julian rubbed his eyes and took another sip of black coffee. He wondered if Sam was going to join him for breakfast. But he had a feeling she wouldn’t even be speaking to him for a while. He knew he must have hurt her terribly when he left her bedchamber last night without a word, but what else could he have done? If he’d stayed to argue with her, he’d have found her nakedness a daunting distraction and would have ended up ravaging her within an inch of her life.

  Just then the door to the breakfast room opened and Julian hoped and feared that it would be Sam. It wasn’t. It was Hedley, Friday-faced and going about his work in as bad a mood, or worse, than Julian’s. Last night, when Julian broke the news to him about Clara’s elopement, he’d displayed the stiff upper lip he was famous for, but underneath his stoic calm, Julian could tell he was angry and hurt.

  “This just arrived, my lord,” Hedley said, wincing as if he had a headache, too. “The lad said it was urgent.”

  “I’ve been getting far too many urgent messages lately,” Julian muttered. He picked up the note, relieved to see it was not from Isabelle. He turned the envelope over and recognized Sir Humphries’s seal and blue wax. He immediately opened it and read a single line of correspondence.

  I have remembered.

  Julian finished his coffee in a couple of hasty gulps, then stood up and strode toward the door. Sir Humphries’s memory breakthrough was an unexpected and most welcome surprise. Perhaps if he could settle this issue of who Sam’s mother was, he’d be less restless and edgy and better able to cope with life in general … and Sam in particular.

  Julian had been surprised at what little interest Sam had shown in the outcome of his search for her mother. It was not at all what he’d expected of her. In fact, she appeared to have put it out of her mind entirely. But maybe that was her way of coping with the situation, he reasoned. Perhaps she was only pretending not to care.

  “You won’t be eating breakfast, my lord?” Hedley inquired as Julian grabbed hold of the doorknob.

  Julian did not wonder at Hedley’s question. Typically, he never missed breakfast and got excessively tetchy if it should happen to be delayed. “Not this morning, Hedley. But be sure to send up a tray to Miss Darlington if she doesn’t come down shortly.”

  Hedley’s nostrils flared. “Of course, my lord,” he intoned haughtily, apparently unable to hide the fact that he largely blamed Sam for Clara’s elopement. He realized now, as Julian had also belatedly realized, that all those walks in Hyde Park were for the forwarding of Clara’s romance with Nathan Ford.

  “I trust no arsenic will be stirred into her tea?” Julian drawled, hoping to lighten Hedley’s mood.

  But Hedley’s nose only lifted another notch in the air as he sniffed and replied, “Certainly not, my lord.”

  Julian sighed and opened the door leading into the hall. But as he stepped through the passage, he bumped into Sam. Fortunately, she was fully clothed.

  “Excuse me,” he said, stepping hastily back and eagerly searching her face for some sign of how she was feeling. To a casual observer, to someone who didn’t know everything Sam had been through the night before, nothing would seem amiss about her appearance this morning. In fact, they would think she looked especially beautiful, dressed in a blue- and-white-striped spencer and a blue walking dress, with her curls loose and arranged in artistic disarray. She was loveliness incarnate.

  But Julian instantly recognized a difference in her, in the rigid way she held herself, in the formal tilt of her head, in the evasiveness of her gaze.

  “Good morning, Julian,” she said coolly, walking past him into the breakfast room. “I trust you slept well last night?”

  Julian raised his brows. Was that remark a deliberate stab? he wondered, or was she just being painfully polite?

  “I … uh … slept very—” He found he could neither lie nor tell the truth without creating an awkward situation, so he resorted to the weather.

  “It is a beautiful day, Sam. Do you have plans?”

  Hedley, looking as sour as curdled milk, pulled out Sam’s chair, then scooted her in. “Yes, I do have plans,” Sam said composedly, never quite meeting Julian’s eyes as she unfolded her napkin and laid it on her lap. “Jean-Luc is coming over, then later I’ll be going to Lady Wentworth’s for tea.”

  “How … er … nice,” Julian offered, then fell silent. He realized with consternation that not even in his salad days had a woman made him feel so helpless and ham-handed.

  Damn.

  “Yes,” Sam agreed, lifting her cup so Hedley could pour her tea. Then, for the first time that morning, she met Julian’s gaze squarely. “I’m quite looking forward to a lovely day. And, you?”

  She took a sip of tea, raising her brows and peering at him over the rim of her cup. Her entire manner was artificial and insincerely polite. Julian hated it.

  “I have plans, too,” he answered obliquely, determining then and there not to tell her about Sir Humphries’s note until he knew what information the old tattle-tongue possessed about Sam’s mother. Her mood was so odd, he didn’t know how she would react to news that could possibly be quite disturbing. While she assumed a hard-as-granite facade, nonetheless he knew that right now Sam was particularly fragile.

  Sam was sure Julian’s “plans” included Charlotte Batsford. She didn’t know why he didn’t just say so instead of acting so mysterious. He’d made it perfectly clear last night that he wanted nothing to do with her, even after she’d bared her soul … and her body … to him.

  Sam blushed with mortification as she remembered the way he’d walked out on her. It had been humiliating and painful to be so summarily rejected, and she’d spent half the night crying over the cruelty of fate and the stupidity of men. But this morning she awoke with new resolve. She was going to forget Julian! Once and for all, she was going to quit beating her head
against a stone wall. If he didn’t want her, she wouldn’t moon after him any longer.

  In fact, she had resolved never to marry at all. She would live happily as a spinster for the rest of her life. She would be quite comfortable at Darlington Hall with Nan and Priss and her collection of dogs … thank you very much.

  “Well, I’m glad you have ‘plans.’ Give my regards to Charlotte, won’t you? And do have a lovely day, Julian,” Sam said dismissively, putting all her attention to the task of buttering her toast. “Goodbye.”

  There was a long pause as Sam waited for Julian to return her cool farewell salutation, and after a while she was forced to look up to see if he still stood at the door. He did. And he was looking at her with an expression that was half exasperation, half sympathy. But, in Sam’s mind, sympathy was too much like pity, and she wanted no such sentiment bestowed on her by Julian. She glared back at him with haughty disdain.

  Finally he sighed, said, “Good-bye, Sam,” in a beleaguered tone, and left.

  To relieve her feelings of frustration, Sam attacked her slice of ham and poached eggs with energy, cutting them into minuscule pieces. Then she simply sat and looked at her yoke-smeared plate with absolutely no appetite or intention of eating the mess she’d made.

  Sam was nudged out of her stupor by Hedley, standing at her elbow and noisily clearing his throat. She looked up into his proud, almost sneering countenance and remembered that she had much more important things to do and think about than feel sorry for herself. Her first order of business had to do with Hedley, but before she could speak, he said stiffly, “If you don’t like your breakfast, Miss Darlington, I should be happy to fetch you something different.”

  “Thank you, Hedley,” Sam replied, trying to get him to look at her, but failing, “but I’m not hungry this morning.”

  “Is there nothing I can get for you, then?” he inquired, punctiliously respectful, but chillingly cold.

  Sam reached into the deep pocket of her gown and pulled out an envelope. “No, but I can give you something,” she informed him, holding out the letter.

  Hedley’s nose stayed in the air, but his eyes slid down to observe the item being offered. “If I might ask, Miss … what is it?” he inquired, his manner still as icy as an arctic breeze.

  “It is a letter from Clara,” she told him in a whisper, not wishing to draw the attention of the two footmen standing by the door. “She asked me to give it to you this morning.”

  At first Hedley did not budge. He simply stared at the letter, his features immobile except for a slight twitch in his left eye. Then he slowly held out his hand and took the note, stashed it immediately away in his jacket pocket, and remained standing at attention.

  “Hedley,” said Sam, amused and touched by his forced self-control, “you can go away and read it, you know. I’m certain you must be dying to. But before you go, I want to tell you something.”

  He flicked a cold glance her way. “Yes, miss?”

  “Clara has explained everything in the letter,” Sam continued, still whispering, “but I do want to add my little bit. I know you’re very angry with Clara and with me, and I don’t mind if you never forgive me. But Clara loves you very much, and I know she would be devastated if you stayed angry with her. And Hedley, she’s so happy! I know you must want that for Clara, because she’s so deserving and such a good girl.”

  Hedley’s brows had lowered during Sam’s little recital, but, otherwise, he’d shown no reaction. Finally, after a long pause, he said, “Thank you, miss,” and walked out of the room, his back as straight as a broomstick.

  Sam sighed, hoping Hedley’s attitude would change over time. Clara wouldn’t be completely happy until she’d received her father’s blessing on the marriage.

  As she finished her tea, and as her thoughts drifted persistently to Julian, Sam resolutely forced them away. Just as she had done with that whole business about her mother, she found it much easier to put the entire painful affair out of her mind.

  She thought instead of Hedley, and wondered how he would react to Clara’s note. At Clara’s insistence, she’d read the note before it had been sealed up, and Sam had been impressed with its honesty, as well as Clara’s sincerely expressed respect and affection for her father. He’d have to have a hard heart to resist such honest emotion.

  And maybe if he forgives Clara, Sam thought ruefully, someday he’ll forgive me, too. And poor Madison. But just to be sure the pup Nathan gave her didn’t bear the brunt of Hedley’s unhappiness over the elopement, she would frequently keep Madison with her. Maybe she would even take him with her to the Wentworths that afternoon.

  Sam pursed her lips and furrowed her brows as a sudden inspiring thought came to her. Maybe she would take all three of the pups to the Wentworths! They would work quite well into her plot to forward Ninian’s interests with his mother.

  Sam was just working out in her head the details of this new idea, when a footman entered the room, bowed, and said, “You’ve a caller, miss. Shall I tell ’im you’re still at breakfast?”

  Sam set down her cup. “Who is the caller, Bob?”

  The lesser servants always seemed surprised and pleased when Sam remembered their names. Bob was no exception. “It’s … it’s Mr. Bouvier, miss,” he said with a shy smile.

  Sam smiled back, making the youthful footman blush to his roots. “I’m expecting Mr. Bouvier. Please take him to the small parlor, Bob, and I’ll join him momentarily.”

  The footman bowed and backed himself out the door, nearly overturning an expensive Grecian-style urn in the process. He blushed deeply and left in a fluster.

  Sam smiled with sad ruefulness, wishing she had a similar effect on Julian. Then she shook off her melancholy, dabbed her mouth with a napkin, stood up, and walked toward the door. Despite her distress over Julian’s rejection, she still stopped at the mirror over the sideboard to inspect her appearance and tweak at a curl or two.

  As she entered the small parlor, Jean-Luc turned from looking out the window and smiled warmly. “Mon Dieu, you get more beautiful every day, Sam.” He winked. “It must be love.”

  Sam “hmphed,” then sat down on a green velvet sofa and smiled wanly. “Is unrequited love supposed to make a girl more beautiful, Jean-Luc? I thought it was supposed to make me pale and thin.”

  Jean-Luc sat down beside her and gave her a considering look. “Unrequited love, eh? I gather things are not progressing as you would wish with the marquess?”

  “Things couldn’t be going worse. He’s probably proposing to Charlotte Batsford even as we speak,” Sam said dejectedly. “But I am resolved not to think of it anymore. I’ve given up on Julian Montgomery for good, Jean-Luc.”

  “This is not like you, chère, to surrender so easily. You always come up with wonderful, daring plans to help your friends, and you are fearless in executing those plans. I was delighted to read in your note about the success of Nathan and Clara’s elopement! Why can’t you do as much for yourself?”

  “Believe me,” Sam said wryly, “I’ve been far more daring and fearless than you think in endeavoring to help myself. In fact, I believe I’ve done everything in my power to convince Julian to seriously consider me in a romantic light. Nothing has worked.”

  Jean-Luc’s expressive brows raised with interest. “What have you done, chère?”

  Beginning with a sigh, then in a rush of words, Sam told Jean-Luc about her enlightening visit to Isabelle Descartes and the resulting confrontation with Julian over it, her earnest confession of love to him at the King’s Arms, the argument and the mud bath, and, finally, her attempt at seduction by removing her towel.

  “I mean, really, Jean-Luc, what would you have done if I stood naked before you and invited you to bathe with me?” Sam entreated him.

  For a moment, Jean-Luc said nothing. He merely swallowed hard … several times. Finally, he said, “I’m beginning to think the marquess of Serling is made of stone or marble, or something similarly cold and unyielding. I
would have succumbed to your charms long ago, Sam. That is … I mean … did you really visit Isabelle Descartes just to learn how to … to … pleasure the marquess? Not many respectable females would even think of doing such a thing.”

  “I want respectability, Jean-Luc,” Sam said thoughtfully. “I want to be a wife, not a mistress. But I don’t want to be boring. I mean, who wants to be married to a woman who only knows one sexual position?”

  “Er … yes,” Jean-Luc said faintly, inserting a finger between his collar and his neck. “You do have a point.”

  “Of course I do. And it stands to reason that no healthy man wants to be married to a woman who is only willing to make love in the dark, or only in the bedchamber. And it would be quite mundane if she were unwilling to learn something new and … and, you know, different, every once in a while.”

  “Yes, different,” Jean-Luc murmured, taking out his handkerchief and wiping his brow. “But … that is … in what way do you mean … different?”

  “But Julian doesn’t appreciate anything I’ve tried to do to make him a good wife,” Sam continued to lament, barely attending to Jean-Luc, who seemed to be suddenly rather flushed and sweaty. “It’s very frustrating.”

  “Yes,” Jean-Luc concurred, nodding pensively. “Very … er … frustrating, indeed. Er … is it hot in here?”

  “Goodness, it must be,” Sam said, standing up. “Although I feel quite comfortable, you look rather pink.” She moved to a window, undid the latch, and swung it open about an inch. Then she sat down beside Jean-Luc again, put her hand over his where it rested on his knee, and smiled gratefully. “Thank you so much for listening to me ramble on. But I promise I won’t bother you any more with my troubles. After all, you’re here to go over the details of our plan to help Ninian. And I must thank you again for agreeing to help. You’re such a wonderful friend!”