But that was foolish.
A young girl’s daydream.
In reality, she was a woman whose husband had married her for her money.
A woman who loved her husband—and had no idea if he might ever return the affection.
* * * *
Hours later, Lily entered the salon on Julian’s arm and took her place in one of the two large Sheratons by the window. He sat in the other and nodded to Phillip Leland, the lawyer, that he could begin.
Lily had never been to a reading of a will. It seemed morbid. She’d even thought it unnecessary but Julian had told her that while his father’s title and entailed lands automatically became his on his father’s death, any other gifts granted were outside that. According to his father’s orders, they were to be announced and were to be given only when all named in the will were present.
Lily gazed upon the assembled guests in the crowded salon while Leland adjusted his glasses. Julian looked wooden, drained. The dowager staid, safely shielded from observation by her black veil with velvet chenille drops. Elanna? Elanna was more of a mystery.
She wore no veil, carried no handkerchief. Effecting a haughty demeanor as Lady Carbury, she’d pulled taut her lustrous rosewood hair into a severe braid curled like a half-crown at her nape. In a move utterly de trop for the occasion, she’d rouged her cheeks and her lips. Her black serge gown was as plain as a serving girl’s, her lack of fashionable bustle a reason—in addition to the rouge—for her mother to take her aside minutes ago and scold her for it. But the new Countess of Carbury had considered her mother with a detachment that set the older lady sputtering. Elanna was done, it appeared, with pleasing others. Even her husband was a recipient of her daunting sang froid.
Among the others in the room, Lily saw no sobbing. No tears. No grief so much as impatience and among the servants, hope.
Money did that to people. Whether its possession or its lack, money made them hungry. Or covetous. Angry or resentful. Happy for a moment.
Which does Julian feel for the acquisition of my money?
She fidgeted in her chair.
“Are you well?” Julian leaned toward her, his anxious face turned from the guests.
“Yes. Yes, quite.”
“Your cheeks are flushed. You seem distressed.”
Unwilling to lie to him, she told him what she could. “I wish this were over.”
His mouth quirked up at one corner. “You are not alone.”
She licked her lips and focused on Leland. He began his reading.
Julian Quentin Ash, only son of Quentin Fernshaw Ash, was to claim his father’s personal effects, including jewelry, robes of state, private carriage and personal property of twenty thousand acres of land in Ireland and ten thousand in Australia.
Charlotte Deirdre Anne Ash, wife, was to claim the dower house at the Broadmore Gate, along with one phaeton and the services of two staff for the remainder of her days. She was to have what jewels her husband had made expressly for her and they were enumerated. All other items were to remain in the family vaults for use by future mistresses of the house.
Elanna Corinne Ash, daughter, was to receive the pair of blue and white Chinese Ming vases from her dressing room.
Valentine Jasper Arden, Lord Burnett and the duke’s nephew, was to receive the portrait of his mother, Louise Caroline Ash, by Frederick Winterhalter.
“And for the servants of Broadmore—” Leland began the bequests the late duke made to each of the household staff from Perkins the butler down to the scullery maid, the groom Docker and his two stable boys, the head gardener and his men. Even the game keeper received a sum of money for service to his master. These particular monies would be paid each servant tomorrow morning at nine o’clock.
The servants filed out. Perkins followed and closed the doors behind him.
Lily allowed herself a sigh of relief. This ordeal was nearly over. Tomorrow morning, Elanna, her husband, Leland and Lord Burnett would depart. Lily would have then only the dowager to contend with. And she’d find the right opportunity—and the right words—to deepen her relationship with Julian.
Her mother-in-law shot to her feet. Her face was red, her hands clenched.
Everyone turned to her.
“The dower house is mine to use, but with only a maid and a butler. Are you quite mad?” she asked, her gaze skewering Leland, then pinning Julian.
“That is the stipulation, Mother.” Julian did not move, sans all emotion.
Lily could feel the winds of a storm brew, the roar of it whipping through the rooms of the mansion.
“I will not go.”
Julian clasped his hands together. “We can discuss this after all have left us.”
“No.”
Her belligerence sent Lily backward in her chair. All others in the room, save Julian, got to their feet, intent on the doors.
“What is my portion?” the dowager persisted, her inquiry of Phillip Leland.
“Tell her. She might as well know all.” Julian rose.
She sneered at him and fixed her gaze on Leland once more. “My portion? You read no amounts.”
Leland stood with an apologetic glance at Julian. “His Grace, your husband, did not wish the sums to be known publicly, Your Grace.”
She grumbled. “But I must know.”
“Three thousand a year.”
She winced. “Absurd. When I married it was to be ten.”
Leland inclined his head. “It was. But conditions have changed and three is what the estate can afford you.”
She faced Julian. “I demand more.”
“There is no more to give you. Father did not invest your jointure in stocks that bore sufficient interest. Even three thousand a year is a huge amount to divest from the family assets.”
Her mother-in-law cast her gaze about the salon, her dark eyes a venomous snap. Beneath her black veil, she indicated her sorrow with a quivering chin and an appropriately crushed handkerchief in one hand. “I cannot live on three. I will not.”
“I’m sorry.” With a polite incline of his head and finality to his tone, Leland let that be the end of this topic.
“The servants’ stipend?” The dowager duchess would not let go her ire, pinning the lawyer to his spot. “Where did that money come from?”
Lelanddid not seem to breathe. “Your son, the duke, gave it to the estate.”
“Really?” She spun toward Julian with violence in her gaze. “From where?”
Lily could bear this woman no longer. Her bitterness, her false dignity, her sense of entitlement were appalling. Lily could not wait for the day she moved to the dower house.
“Where?” the woman insisted with a stomp of her foot. “Ah. The American’s dowry.”
One brow arching high, Julian considered her with a disparaging eye. “No.”
“Where then?”
“You are being unruly, madam,” Julian warned her.
“I insist.”
“Do it all you like,” he said and made for the doors. “I will not remain to listen.”
“I am your mother.”
He whirled to face her. “Yes. And I wish, only once, you might have acted like it. But for more years than I care to recall, I have seen you teach me by word and example, that more than my mother, you have become a selfish, rude, ruthless creature.”
Lily stood, she knew not how. Never had she heard anyone in her family have such an exchange. Never had she deemed it possible. But at once she saw clearly one reason why Julian might never love her. Might not even be capable.
He’d been nurtured by people who knew not how to care for others. Not selflessly. Not completely.
One glance at Elanna told Lily she was horribly right.
The young woman was smiling, the expression triumphant. Sardonic.
Marriage had transformed Elanna. How, why, what Carbury and she did together, how they got on, would never be known to Lily. Nor did she wish to learn.
But to look at Elanna told
her one more fact. Elanna had withdrawn from her husband along with all others in her family. Her reasons were her own. She’d had examples set before her of parents who tormented each other. If her own marriage was not happy, she could think that the norm.
Did her brother bear the same tendencies?
Could Julian turn on Lily the way his mother had turned on his father? Would he love? Or did he only lust?
Chapter Sixteen
In their dressing room, her husband reclined in the huge porcelain bathtub which barely contained his long, strong form. His head back along the rim, he had closed his eyes. His sensual mouth formed a slash, grim. And as Lily watched his facial muscles move from frown to scowl, she guessed he relived the reading of the will earlier this afternoon.
He’d dismissed his valet, and she had waved off Nora. They could retire for the evening. The guests in the house were invited to partake of a cold buffet in the dining room at their leisure. Lily had suggested that and her mother-in-law had not, for once, countermanded her order. Breathing a sigh of relief, Lily had closed the door upon their two personal servants. She wished to be alone with Julian to draw him out on the day’s troubles.
“Would you like me to wash your back?”
At her words, he peeped open one eye and grinned at her. “The best suggestion I’ve heard today.”
“Is the water warm enough?”
“I hate to overtax the plumbing system.”
“You are the owner of this plumbing, dear sir, and if it doesn’t suit you, who will it please?” She strode to the cistern and put a hand to the heater. Warm. She turned the spigot. The water gurgled through the pipe and emerged in a solid stream to Julian’s tub. “How’s that?”
He tested the flow. “Excellent.”
She got a wash cloth from the linen cupboard and went to her knees. She dunked the cloth in his water. “Lean forward.”
He complied.
She began a slow circular massage of his broad back. “I think Phillip did a marvelous job today.”
Julian made a sound that he agreed.
“Val was happy with his mother’s portrait,” Lily said, recalling the way the man admired the painting of the striking blonde woman.
“She was lovely. And Winterhalter did her justice. I remember her.”
“She was your father’s sister?”
“She was. Ran away with Val’s father. Supposed to be a scamp, but a rich one. Still my father and his did not approve. She was cut from the family inheritance, even her portrait had to remain here. Did her well, it seems, not to be in touch with us. She was, you see, very happy with her husband. Unlike those of us in this family.”
It chilled Lily to hear him include himself in the family curse. Swallowing back any negativity, Lily ran her hand down Julian’s spine, the nap of the cloth tingling the skin of her palms. “She was very lovely.”
He raised his head and wiped the drops of water from his jaw. “We’re not a bad looking family.” He turned his head to gaze at her and let his eyes caress her features. “You make us look even better.”
She winked at him and went back to her task of washing him. He was so masculine. Muscular and fit, he was a handsome creature. Her husband. Hers. And not hers completely. She tried to be valiant. “Elanna resembles your aunt.”
“She does. In looks.” His last words held an ominous note. “I’m glad she and Carbury go home tomorrow. I cannot bear their animosity.”
“How can she be so indifferent to him?” Lily asked and hated that she’d let slip such honesty.
“I gather he merits it. Though I’m not certain why.”
Her worst fear of the Carburys’ relationship was almost outlandish. “Does he mistreat her?”
Julian snorted. “Ha! You mean like my father ‘mistreated’ my mother?”
“Well, I—”
“You can say it.” He leaned over, bunching up his knees and circling his arms around them. “You did not see much of it.”
She paused. “Enough. I saw enough.”
“They never stopped punishing each other.”
“For what?” she whispered. Oh, that was bold. She bit her lip.
He pivoted and looked her straight in the eyes. “They loved each other when they first married, but in turn, each one took another to bed.”
“That,” she said with tears in her throat, “is very sad. Why would they?”
“Why would they?” Julian winced and lifted his face to the ceiling. “Because it was possible. Because he was a duke. She was a duchess. Men and women coveted the chance to say they’d bedded them. Because he was obsessed with his title and his pride. And she was obsessed with…”
What? Her reputation? Her title? Her—
“Revenge.”
“How—how do you know?”
He shrugged. “Bits and pieces of the resentments came out in their arguments over the years. They were reputed to be a unique couple, renowned lovers, fated mates, envied. But others sought to ruin the perfection. For their own amusement, I gathered. Society can do that. Indulge in such cruelty. And the two of them were silly enough—weak enough—to allow it.”
She sought to put distance or perspective between his parents’ tragic marriage and what could happen to her own. She stopped her ministrations, the cloth dropping to the water with a splash. “Elanna is not full of vengeance.”
“No. She’s full of hatred.”
“But—”
He raked a hand through his wet black hair. “It doesn’t matter. Her marriage appears to be a disaster as well.”
“I don’t want ours to be.”
He spun to look at her. The frown that creased his brows alarmed her.
She shrank away.
He grabbed her hand. “Neither do I.”
She began to smile when he shook his head.
“I fear I don’t know how to be a proper husband.”
Tell me you love me. That would make you a perfect husband.
He rose from the tub, grabbed a towel from the rim and anchored it around him. Stepping out, he reached for her and drew her to him.
He lifted her face and kissed her with a ferocity she hadn’t known from him. As if he were not thinking, only feeling, he led her to their bed, brushed her peignoir and her negligee to the carpet and put her to the edge of the mattress. There, he cupped his hands behind her knees and brought her legs around his hips. The towel had fallen and she embraced him, naked and full and ready for him.
In a second, he sank inside her. Her eyes fluttered shut as he filled her and satisfied them both with breathless passion. But what they built together out of this lust for each other left her wondering, wanting more that she feared he might not ever be able to give her.
* * * *
“I’ll bid them all goodbye,” he told Lily the next morning. He bent to place a kiss on her mouth, her lips swollen from their love play last night. She’d been pliant in their first coupling, then turned ravenous in their second. He was a fortunate man to have a wife who loved her bed sport. He could not have planned for a better mate. And yet, he was ashamed to say, he denied her what she needed to make it perfect.
Denied her the declaration that teased his lips every time he kissed her and pushed inside her wet and giving walls. If he said he loved her, would he—like others he knew—lose his pride, his very self in the process? Could he give himself away so completely?
If he did, she’d have such power over him. Such terrifying power.
He lifted her hand and kissed her palm. Escape was easier. “Have your breakfast here, will you?”
“I don’t like to.” She fingered the buttons on his coat, fixing it so that he was dressed to perfection to greet his guests downstairs over breakfast.
“I know, but you needn’t endure them.” The sheet over her breasts slipped, her large rosy nipples a ripe temptation. He’d bitten one last night in his madness for her and his teeth had marked her. Tempted once again to join her in bed, he compensated by bending to lic
k her luscious skin and suck one hard point into his mouth. His cock jumped.
She undulated and clamped shut her eyes.
Be a gentleman, not a beast. Drawing away, he grinned at her. “You did your part yesterday, darling, and they made you sad. I want you happy. I’ll tell Nora to bring you a tray.”
She pulled at the sheet and he winked at her as he turned away.
In the dining room, his mother and Leland were already seated. Shocked that his mother deigned to eat here rather than in her own bedroom from a tray, he bid her good morning with a half smile. To Phillip Leland he gave a broader one.
“I’ve been talking with Mister Leland,” said his mother, “about my allowance.”
“I see.” Julian sat in a quiet tone as Perkins the butler and a footman hurried around him with pots of tea and coffee. “And? What of it?”
“I tell you, Julian. I need more money.”
He ground his teeth. In front of Phillip who was a very distant relation, she might have addressed him as Seton. But she had this persistent reluctance to recognizing that, indeed, he was now the duke and she must in public call him by any number of honorifics. His given name was not permitted. Her failures in addressing him correctly were her attempt to show she superseded him. She did not. And he would not allow it.
Furthermore for this dressing-down, he would not dismiss his servants. This was his house, his domain, his money and his debts. And he would be master here.
“Madam,” he said in the frostiest tone he had ever used with anyone, “there is no more money.”
She glared at the butler and the footman in turn. “They must leave.”
Both men froze in their tracks.
Julian locked his eyes on hers. “They will remain.”
“You had money for them,” she accused him. “If you have it for them—”
“No. I do not have more for you.”
“I understand you sold that Irish land you wanted your father to sell. There’s money from that.”
Wild Lily (Those Notorious Americans Book 1) Page 25