Julia continued. “My apologies. I tend to babble when it seems that people aren’t quite . . .”
“Comfortable?”
“Well, I suppose I should explain that sometimes people are upset in my company—not because of me or because they’re uncomfortable around me, but because they’re about to talk about something difficult. People share things with me, difficult things that are hard to talk about, and I’ve gotten used to babbling a bit, when necessary.”
“And you thought it was necessary now?”
“You seemed . . . hesitant. Perturbed. I don’t know, insert your synonym here.”
Uncomfortable. Flushed. Hesitant.
Charles couldn’t remember the last time any of these adjectives had been applied to him. He doubted anyone had ever had the temerity to label him in such a . . . disparaging . . . way, even jokingly, even behind his back.
Next she’d be asking him whether he was about to faint and required smelling salts. Not exactly an auspicious beginning. He squared his shoulders and said in as gravelly a voice as he could manage, “I did not mean to give you such an impression. You do not make me the least bit uncomfortable.” He stopped walking for a moment, tugged on the reins of the recalcitrant mare, and waited until Julia made eye contact. “It’s been a long week of traveling,” he said, rubbing his neck for effect, half-wondering whether he might be overdoing things a bit. He’d never been a good actor. Correction: he’d never before had to act, for any reason. “And Robeson’s accommodations leave much to be desired.”
At the mention of Robeson’s name, it was Julia’s turn to become quiet. They continued walking, Charles leading the mare, Julia leading Charles.
“Have you been friends for long?” she asked at length.
Charles grimaced. He would not, before this particular charade, have classified his relationship with Robeson as a “friendship,” and he doubted that these three months of enforced cohabitation would change that. “Yes and no.”
Julia smiled widely, her eyes twinkling. “Not to encourage you and your perception of me as a decipherer of words and meanings, but an answer like that undoes centuries of formal logic.”
“Formal logic?” He knew he sounded like a parrot, as she had said, but he couldn’t seem to help himself.
“While we might disagree on how, exactly, to define the period of time quantified as ‘long,’ the question of whether you can be classified as friends is ultimately a yes or no question.”
Charles rolled his eyes again. It might have just been the heat of the summer day or the distractingly appealing scent or a stomach that hadn’t been fed a well-prepared meal for too long, but he was almost starting to enjoy himself. She talked too much and liked to argue more than answer questions, but there was a certain logic to her madness. In some ways, her dialogue was almost . . . engaging, which was more than he could say for his own sorry efforts.
He smiled, laying a hand briefly on her arm to stop her. Nothing sensual, nothing forward, just a light touch so that she was forced to stop and look at him. He said, “To answer your previous question: you’re the type of pedant who is minutely observant.”
Julia grinned, an effort that had an almost blinding effect. Her eyes sparkled, her teeth gleamed, and her lips curved invitingly. “Tell me something I don’t know.”
Charles paused and finally said, “The letter w was initially written as what we would think of as two v’s, for there were no u’s in Latin. Thus the pronunciation for the letter, ‘double u,’ was actually a literal reading of two v’s, as the letter used to be written.”
“If that’s true, when why don’t we call it a ‘double v’?”
Charles looked at her and chuckled. “You know, I’ve never thought about that. I’m fairly certain it’s true, as it’s what my Latin tutor told me. He said a lot of things, actually, though most of them didn’t stick. Trivia seems to have an adhesive quality, supplanting useful knowledge.”
Julia placed both of her hands on her hips, and her eyes rounded a little, as if absorbing his words. “I did not know that,” she said finally.
“The adhesive property of trivia?”
Julia gave a short laugh. “About the w.”
Charles smiled broadly, glad that the conversation was finally more firmly in his control. He started walking again, leading the mare, and for once, forcing Julia to follow his lead, though he had no particular idea where they were walking. “Ah. Well. Just trying to fulfill your request to tell you something you don’t know. I’ve found that you’re quite a literal person.”
Julia smiled again, and they looked into one another’s eyes for a moment. None of the debutantes who had flirted coyly with him, none of the mistresses he’d ever kept, had ever flat-out grinned at him as Julia had. They’d always smiled in a reserved way or a seductive way—in ways that were calculated to entice or elicit some response from him. Julia seemed to smile because it was a natural extension of what she was feeling. She was transparent, joyous in a way that was truly infectious.
She tapped her finger along her chin with exaggerated patience and said, “And still you have not answered my initial question.”
“Ah, yes, add tenacious to the list.” He looped the reins around his hands and absently patted Robeson’s mare. He repeated her question: “Are Robeson and I friends?”
Julia kicked at an unoffending rock that was lodged in the trail. “That’s a common delaying tactic.”
“What?”
“Repeating the question. I used to do it too, whenever my father quizzed me. ‘Five times thirteen? You want me to say what thirteen times five is? As in thirteen times five?’ and so on, until I’d enough time to do the addition.”
“Not a maths person?”
“Oh, I loved maths, just not multiplication. Now my stepsister,” she paused, and shook her head. “Claire loathes maths. Used to feign sickness to avoid maths lessons and was always trying to get me to collude with her. I colored her tongue blue once, to try to help out. You wouldn’t believe how upset our parents were.”
“I can only imagine,” he said, his lips quirking. He admitted that she was an amusing baggage, when she wasn’t busy peppering him with questions, as though they were reenacting the Inquisition.
“You have siblings? Or a stepmother?”
Charles smiled and replied, “No—only child, I’m afraid. It’s just that I, too, have always hated maths. So I can relate to your clever little stepsister, though I never went so far as coloring my tongue. What illness was she trying to feign?”
Julia shrugged and said baldly, “Bubonic plague.”
When Charles laughed, she continued, “We were both young and had no idea what symptoms should have manifested. My father was terribly upset—said we didn’t understand the devastation of illness and . . . well, he’s a rector. Suffice it to say that we had to sit through several lectures not only about our ability to be sensitive, empathetic Christians but also about what the actual symptoms look like. My father hates it when we’re inaccurate, even in our lies.”
Julia stopped walking and looked pointedly at Charles, eyebrows raised to remind him that she hadn’t forgotten her original question. “You. Lord Robeson. Friends?”
He tilted his head in acknowledgment, saying, “Fine. I’ll admit to stalling. The truth is complicated and a bit awkward to answer: more no than yes. Robeson and I have known one another for years. We have friends and”—he paused; he couldn’t very well say “mistresses”—“acquaintances that sometimes overlap. But we’ve never been particularly close.”
It might have been his imagination, but he could almost feel the tension easing out of her. She started walking again, and the basket of lemons swung to the rhythm of her gait. Charles frowned at the basket. He was certain he ought to have asked to carry it—that it would have been the gentlemanly thing to do. But now, so far into their walk, it felt silly to suddenly break rhythm and ask.
“And yet you don’t call him Lord Robeson. You don’t treat
him deferentially.”
Charles inclined his head. That was, indeed, a slip on his part. As a mere mister, he probably should have been slightly more reverential and formal in his address. He forced a fake shrug. “As I said, we’ve known each other for a long time. We’ve never been close, but we’ve never stood on formality, either.”
She didn’t press him further, didn’t question why he was staying with someone who wasn’t actually a friend, and Charles said, a bit tentatively, “I gather you’re not friends.”
Julia smiled. Even to Charles, who admittedly didn’t know her well, it didn’t seem like a happy smile. “In the past, more yes than no. He was younger, obviously, and hadn’t inherited.”
He repeated her words and tone in his head several times before asking, “You make it sound almost like a bad thing that he’s a viscount.”
“It doesn’t appear to have made him happy, does it?” She made it sound more like a statement than a question, and even Charles could tell that now was not the time to press further. Though he hadn’t really marked their steps, he noticed that they were approaching a nicely proportioned but modest-looking two-story. More house than cottage, though just barely.
Julia turned toward him now, opening the wooden half gate that was clearly more for decoration than function, and said, “You’re welcome to come in for tea, if you’d like.”
Charles gazed at the welcoming entrance: a variety of flowers was in full bloom: marigolds fought with hyacinths in a variety of boxes, and a variety of perennials whose names he would have been hard pressed to remember decorated the short path up to the front door. Trees that sorely needed tending had low-hanging branches, making it seem almost as though they were framing the walk to the house. It looked quaint and inviting: nothing like the well-groomed lawns and expansive grounds he employed an army of gardeners to tend to, but still, it was quite obvious that the cook’s vegetable garden hadn’t been the sole beneficiary of Julia’s aphid spray.
“I think I’ve rarely heard a less welcoming invitation,” he drawled finally, wondering why she seemed to have withdrawn a bit from him.
“Nonsense. I’m the vicar’s daughter. I invite people in all the time, and I always mean it.”
She pursed her lips. Charles’s gaze was drawn immediately toward them, and he noticed again how full and almost lush they appeared. Though she was not out of breath from their walk, the mixture of sun, conversation, and mild exertion had added a delightful blush to her cheeks, and now that he had the opportunity to examine her more closely, and in finer detail, he realized that although she was not classically beautiful, there was an allure to her fresh-faced appearance.
He looked down at his own attire, thinking that he was too wrinkled to be presentable, and then realizing that he didn’t exactly have anything more suitable at his disposal.
“Perhaps another day,” he said. This, at least, was a response he was practiced at giving. He’d murmured these exact words countless times in response of a variety of invitations, of which being invited to the vicarage for tea ranked as the most innocent. Never before, though, had his rejection been met with such . . . relief. There was no other way to describe Julia’s breezy smile and almost careless wave.
“Another time, then,” she said, smiling widely and almost skipping to the front door of her home, never bothering to look back.
Charles stared at the sway of her hips until they’d disappeared behind the front door, which had been rapidly opened and shut. He shook his head to clear the fog that had temporarily enveloped him and realized that he’d just been summarily dismissed!
It wasn’t a feeling he was used to, and whether it was just the bet or something else, he felt a pang of something close to regret as he turned and remounted. The mare hadn’t lived up to expectations, but Julia’s company had made the morning quite invigorating.
Aphids and all.
*
Julia had barely closed the door before Claire approached her. “Was that your somewhat attractive Mr. Alver? The one you conveniently forgot to mention until Mama asked?”
Julia jumped and colored a little. “You shouldn’t sneak up on people like that.”
“I didn’t sneak. If you hadn’t been busy trying not to look back, you would have seen me standing here, clear as day.”
“I wasn’t trying not to look back.”
Claire wrinkled her nose and chose not to reply. “You didn’t invite him to tea?”
Julia shook her head. “Wrong. I did, in fact, invite him in. He declined.”
“You sound breathless,” Claire said. Her eyebrow arched, completing Julia’s sense that this was more accusation than observation.
“You scared me.”
Claire narrowed her eyes as if trying to assess the truth of Julia’s statement and then looked pointedly at the clock on the far wall. “And what would you have done if he’d said yes?”
Julia smiled and batted her eyelashes playfully. “If he’d agreed to come in, I would have gone to my appointment and fobbed him off on my somewhat attractive stepsister!” She peered out the window and pretended not to hear Claire’s huff of protest, trying to ignore the faint prick of her conscience. Julia told herself that the twinge she felt was hunger; it’d been hours since breakfast. She told herself she wasn’t deliberately trying to postpone the moment when she’d have to introduce Mr. Alver to her all-too-pretty and far-too-charming stepsister.
She grabbed at the handkerchief-wrapped biscuit she’d stuffed into the edge of her basket this morning before she’d gone on her walk. She would have eaten it earlier, but even she could see that it would have seemed rude and unladylike to eat in front of Mr. Alver.
She finished the biscuit as Claire watched, and, examining the too-perfect features of her younger stepsister, Julia noted that the biscuit hadn’t helped. She still felt queasy at the thought of introducing Mr. Alver to Claire. Though she hadn’t met a lot of eligible men in the years since Archie, it was universally true that all the men she had met had been noticeably less interested in her after they’d met Claire. That was just the way of things: men, like magpies, were attracted to things that were shiny. And in the right gown and under the right lighting, Claire practically glittered.
Not that Julia could even say Mr. Alver was interested in her. He’d walked with her and joked with her a little. But what did a walk and a joke mean, really?
Julia shifted her basket and picked up the bag of lemon peels she’d prepared yesterday.
“Well, I’m off again. So wish me luck,” she said.
Claire wrinkled her nose again. “I thought you were past the trial-and-error stage of all this? Where you needed unscientific things like luck?”
Julia hesitated, not sure how much she should reveal. Her father knew only that Julia helped out with a charitable project. Claire knew that some of the herbs and lemons were for the production of various scents, but not much beyond that.
“Every new scent is a new experiment, I’ve told you that.”
“‘I’ve told you that,’” Claire mimicked. “It’s amazing how you never tire of saying that.”
“No, I never do.”
Claire walked to the back door. “Well then, I won’t keep you from your work.”
There was a slight edge in her voice. Claire had always been a little miffed that this was one project Julia never invited her to help with, despite their closeness.
If Julia could have, she would have told Claire about it long ago. The problem was that it wasn’t her project—not really, despite her long involvement in, and support of, all aspects of it. It was Jack LeMay’s. And despite the fact that the three of them had practically grown up together, Jack and Claire did not get along. Which meant that Julia had very strict orders about not telling Claire about any aspects of Jack’s side projects.
She smiled a little, realizing that it didn’t seem accurate to call them “side projects” any longer. What had begun as necessity, as a way of funding temporary homes for women
in need had grown into increasingly large, factories and establishments, and that, in turn had become a small empire of sorts, a self-sustaining business that was both profitable and expanding. Few who knew Jack would have believed that he was quickly becoming a business magnate, perhaps more so because he insisted that so much of it stay silent and anonymous.
Julia was certain that she was the only one in Munthrope who knew the true extent of Jack’s holdings and interests, and though she’d been fundamental in helping him get started, she doubted that even she knew just how successful he was. He always insisted that she was more of a partner than anything else and always offered to invest or reinvest her share of their profits, but finances had never really been something she’d been interested in. She’d given him almost every half penny of what she’d inherited from her mother, not because she’d wanted to get rich or even because she’d thought there were better than even odds of getting a portion of her money back.
Jack was her friend, and she loved him—not in a romantic way; they’d tried to kiss once, had started laughing before their lips had even touched, and realized that it just wasn’t for them. Jack was the brother she’d never had, the confidant she always leaned upon.
That he’d turned out to have been born with a bit of a Midas touch, that her small investment had set him on his path toward success, and that he’d paid her back in shares that he told her were worth quite a bit of money . . . well, that had just been a stroke of luck.
Or perhaps Providence.
She never asked about the shares and always just told him to reinvest—that she’d let him know if and when her family needed money—but that it wasn’t something she particularly wanted to think about. She trusted Jack. And she was proud of him and his success.
But at times like these, when she found herself having to lie, tell half-truths, or just weakly shrug, as if that were response enough, well, it was trying, to say the least. She understood that he was a private person and that it was his right to protect his own privacy. But there had been many times, especially in the past few years, as she’d gotten closer to Claire, that she wished, at the very least, he’d let her tell Claire.
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