Scandal of the Year

by Laura Lee Guhrke

  Julia remembered their first meeting on that bridge, and how he’d pokered up so stiff when she’d teased him. Now she knew why. “What did you do? Go to your father?”

  “God, no. My father would have cuffed me on the side of the head and told me to be a man, and stop bothering him with schoolboy trifles.”

  Listening to him, Julia felt a fierce wave of outrage rising up within her on his behalf. “Bastard.”

  He shrugged as if it didn’t matter. “I hired the local blacksmith—who was quite a sound pugilist—to teach me to fight. The day after I returned for fall term, one of the upperclassmen tried to have a go at me, and I gave him the thrashing of his life. Afterward, I stood over him, fists clenched, blood running down my face, and I dared any other boy who had issue with me to come forward and demonstrate it now.”

  She smiled, picturing it. “My head is bloody but unbowed,” she murmured.

  He stopped abruptly, bringing her to a halt as well. “ ‘Invictus,’ ” he murmured, staring at her in the moonlight. “That is one of my favorite poems.”

  “Is it? Mine too.” In a rush, she blurted, “It’s rather how I always think of you. That is, when I think of you. I mean—”

  She stopped, agonizingly self-conscious all of a sudden.

  “Do you know how I always think of you?” he asked. “With your legs over the side of the bridge and your pretty feet in the water.”

  Warmth washed over her like the sun coming out between clouds, chasing away shadows and darkness.

  “You see?” he added, smiling a little, “you’ve been bedeviling me since we were seventeen.”

  “I thought so,” she admitted, “but then, that night in St. Ives, you met Trix, and I thought I was wrong. I—” She stopped, too proud to confess how keen her disappointment had been. “You paid your addresses to her.”

  “You were married. I don’t enter dalliances with other men’s wives.” He grimaced. “At least, I’ve always believed that it was morally wrong to do so.”

  I’m sorry, Aidan, she thought. I’m sorry.

  “Still,” he went on in a lighter voice, “you’re no longer married, I have you in my sights again, and I can’t bear the thought of walking away now, not if there’s the slightest chance you want me as much as I still want you.”

  She opened her mouth to tell him there was no chance, but other words came out of her mouth instead. “I thought I was here to prove I don’t want you.”

  His gaze was unblinking, steady, looking into hers. “I’m hoping you fail.”

  I won’t fail because I don’t feel. “And if I can prove I don’t want you?” she asked, her whisper sounding harsh to her own ears. “What then?”

  “I suppose I shall be dancing about half a dozen waltzes on Friday with your idea of suitable duchesses, which, now that you know I don’t like to dance, should prove quite entertaining for you, given your wicked sense of humor. But—” He paused, and slowly, ever so slowly, he eased his body closer to hers. “You can save me from that fate, Julia. When I kiss you, all you have to do is kiss me back.”

  How could he want her now, after everything that had happened? After she’d used him and exploited him? He didn’t remember most of it, but he knew he’d been manipulated, the knight she’d used to checkmate Yardley. She’d never have thought he could want her now, but he did. It was in his eyes when he looked at her. It was in his voice. He wasn’t like her, she knew, for he could still want and need and make love and not be afraid of it all.

  Pull away, she told herself, but she could not seem to make her body comply with the demand of her mind. She stood as if paralyzed, afraid tonight would only prove he knew more about her innermost feelings than she did.

  Aidan’s eyes, dark in the moonlight, were locked with hers, and in their depths was not only desire, but also the question they were here to answer. His fingers entwined with hers, and his other hand pressed against the small of her back, bringing her closer. Her heartbeat, already quick and fast, began to beat even harder in her chest.

  His fingers slid up her spine, a light, delicate caress that was like the rekindling of a fire amid the ashes, and when his palm cupped her cheek, warmth flared within her.

  “Why are you doing this?” she whispered as he tilted her head back.

  “Isn’t it obvious? I’m turning the tables. This time, I’m seducing you.”

  “But why?” she cried, growing desperate. “I’m a female Iago, remember? How can you want me now?”

  “How can I not?” His gaze roamed her upturned face. “You started this, you know. Ten months ago. But I don’t remember how we finished it.”

  She licked her dry lips. “Yes, you do. We finished it that day in the divorce court.”

  He shook his head. “No. That afternoon in Cornwall still holds some very vague but tantalizing blank spaces for me. Things I don’t remember. Things I want to remember very badly. They echo back to me again and again, and the more I see you, the more I imagine filling in those blank places.” He gave a caustic chuckle. “The details become more erotic each time my imagination sets to work, I’m afraid.”

  Julia stared up at him in dismay. He didn’t know, not really, just why and how she’d done what she’d done. And when he found out, when he learned the extent of her duplicity, when he figured out that she was dry as dust and as erotic as a fence post, he wouldn’t want her anymore.

  Best if she just called a halt now and let him think whatever he liked, imagine whatever he wanted, as long as he never learned the truth. And yet, as he lowered his head, she just couldn’t find the will to turn her face away. If she was cold and dead, why did she feel so warm inside?

  He paused, his mouth only a hairsbreadth from hers. “C’mon, Julia,” he whispered, his lips brushing hers in a feather-light caress. “Refresh my memory.”

  He kissed her, and it was like sunshine, bringing heat and light and radiant glow, lighting her up from the inside, sending heat to her fingertips, to her toes, to the ends of her hair and the tip of her nose. And it was like rain, drenching a parched soul, and like food for a starving body.

  There was no conscious thought; she was aware of only the most primitive sensations—hunger and pleasure—as she rose up on her toes, seeking more. And when his lips opened against hers, the hunger in her became need, and the pleasure deepened into lust.

  He felt it, too. His hand let go of hers, and his arms slid around her waist, pulling her even closer. She came willingly, pressing her body to his, and when his tongue entered her mouth, she welcomed it, tasting, savoring, surrendering to a luscious carnality she hadn’t felt in years.

  With that surrender, something seemed to unfold inside her. Like leaves unfurling, tight-budded roses spiraling open, shoots pushing up through dark soil to reach the light. It began to hurt, this pleasure, but not like any pain she’d ever felt; it was a pain that came from deep inside her and spread through her body, sharp, acute, and sweet. It was joy. The blissful sting.

  Suddenly, it was all too overwhelming to bear, and she tore her lips from his. Panting, she stared up at him in shock, for she’d never felt this when she’d kissed him that day in Cornwall. She’d been too driven, too focused on her goal, too detached. But now, she felt vibrant, alive, raw, and afraid. So terribly afraid.

  She shook her head, trying to deny what had just happened, but there was no possibility of denial. She strove to think, but she couldn’t form coherent thought. She wanted to hide, but there was no refuge. Suddenly, his arms around her felt like chains, binding her to him, and all her deepest fears came roaring up, like the snarl of a cornered, wounded animal.

  “I don’t want this!” she cried, hardly knowing what she was saying, her palms flattening against his chest to push him away, her body twisting out of his embrace. “I don’t want it, damn you!”

  Overwhelmed, she did the only thing she could. She bolted.

  Whirling around, pulling folds of her gown up in her fists, she ran out of the maze, guided only by t
he vaguest memory of how she’d come in, her panic growing with each wrong turn, until at last, her heart racing and her breath coming in shuddering gasps, she found the exit. Free, she raced like a mad thing across a wide expanse of lawn to seek refuge in the woods beyond, and she ignored the sound of Aidan’s voice calling her name.

  Aidan didn’t go after her. He might not have Julia’s exceptional perception when it came to people, but in this case, he didn’t need it. Her face and her body had told him everything a man needed to know.

  He shut his eyes, envisioning her in that split second before she’d turned and fled. Her eyes, silvery gray in the moonlight, wide with shock. Her lips, puffy from his kiss. Her cheeks flushed, and her breasts heaving from her uneven breathing. Her hands, shaking, as she’d grasped folds of her skirt. She’d been stunned by that kiss, and confused, and unmistakably aroused, giving him the confirmation he’d been seeking. She wanted him as much as he wanted her.

  But he also recognized fear when he saw it, and that was something he didn’t understand at all.

  That kiss had terrified her.

  Aidan opened his eyes, confounded. What on earth was she afraid of? Him? Surely not, or she never would have come tonight. Kissing? Not that, either, for she’d kissed him plenty of times that afternoon in Cornwall, and there had been no sign of fear in her then. Still, he had no intention of running after her, asking questions and seeking explanations. That would only agitate her more, and he doubted she would answer him anyway.

  Still, he now had the answer to one question, but though it was a gratifying answer to be sure, he feared it was only drawing him into a deeper mystery, the mystery of Julia’s soul. And that, he reflected, thinking of her frightened face, was a place she did not want him to go.

  A whine brought him out of his reverie and he turned to find Spike sitting by the carved granite rook where he’d been leashed. The bulldog was looking at him, head cocked to one side in a quizzical fashion, as if trying to understand what had just taken place.

  “I know how you feel, old chap,” Aidan said with a sigh. “I don’t really understand, either. But we are talking about Julia, so that’s no surprise.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Gwithian, Cornwall

  1903

  Dovecotes, the Cornish cottage Julia had inherited from her grandmother, was a small, square, stone farmhouse north of St. Ives. Tucked into the isolated eastern side of a little promontory above the beaches at Gwithian, Dovecotes had a pretty little beach of its own, a few caves, a few acres of empty, overgrown pasture, and a sadly neglected garden of herbs, roses, and, of course, a dovecote. It was Julia’s favorite haven, the place to which she often escaped when Yardley didn’t feel inclined to chase after her.

  But in the summer of 1903, Yardley was always chasing after her. The work to stay one step ahead of him was becoming exhausting, and she was running out of time. For most of August, she’d been hiding at Pixy Cove, Lord Marlowe’s villa at Torquay, but when she received her husband’s final ultimatum, a letter informing her that he was in Torquay and would call the following afternoon to fetch her and take her home to Yardley Grange, she knew she couldn’t hide any longer. Yardley’s letter assured her that he had the proper legal decree granting constables the authority to drag her from Marlowe’s villa, or any other residence to which she decided to flee, by force.

  Julia, who didn’t give a damn about legal decrees, had promptly put petrol in the Mercedes and fled to Cornwall. If she was to be dragged anywhere by constables, it wasn’t going to be done in front of her family and friends, who would have to stand by helpless, unable to come to her aid.

  Spike and a small valise were the only things she’d brought with her, for she hadn’t wanted to linger long enough to pack her things. Giselle, along with her husband, Pierre, were packing up the rest of her belongings and following her by train.

  She didn’t mind making the journey alone. She was used to this sort of thing, and she knew that on this long stretch of Cornish road, with only Spike for company, she would have time to think. The problem was, six hours later, she was nearly to Dovecotes, and she had no solution to her problem.

  What was she going to do? Even before her husband had laid down his ultimatum two summers earlier that she was to come home to Yardley Grange for good, be a proper wife, and give him a son, Julia had been determined to free herself from her marriage, but she’d never been able to gain a way out.

  Yardley had given her no grounds for divorce, according to the various legal minds she had consulted on the subject.

  Nor would any adultery on his part be considered proper grounds. Divorcing one’s spouse for adultery alone was a privilege reserved for men. Women had to charge adultery with some other pertinent offense, such as desertion or impotence. And since the letters from his attorneys demonstrated that Yardley was willing to take up residence with her again, desertion as a secondary cause was not possible, nor was impotence. Yardley had at least four bastard children that she knew of.

  No, she’d been over this a thousand times, and she knew there were only two ways to be free of her husband. Murder was one, and though by the summer of 1903, Julia’s numbed soul ought to have become hardened enough for homicide, she couldn’t ever quite bring herself to contemplate that course, partly because of conscience, and partly because being locked in prison until she died was hardly the sort of freedom she was looking for. Making Yardley divorce her was the only option she had.

  Yardley, however, wasn’t cooperating with that plan. She’d staged a few affairs over the years, but she couldn’t seem to bring herself to actually have one. She’d flirted with the idea two years earlier when she’d seen Aidan at the St. Ives Ball, but with that exception the thought of having a man touch her in a sexual way had the unfortunate tendency to make her physically sick. And none of her staged affairs had ever been convincing enough to inspire her husband to a divorce suit.

  As she drove the road to St. Ives, Julia couldn’t help remembering the last time she’d been here, when a means of escape had danced before her eyes. But then Aidan had met Trix, and she had stepped aside, fleeing to Biarritz. It was from there that she’d received Trix’s letter announcing their engagement. But now, two years later, Trix was married, not to Aidan, but to Will, her childhood sweetheart, the Duke of Sunderland, and Julia’s sacrifice had been for naught.

  It wasn’t Trix’s fault. She’d always loved Will, probably from the day she’d first laid eyes on him, and she was ecstatically happy digging up relics with him in the Egyptian desert. Her world was opening up to include all sorts of new experiences and adventures. Julia’s life, on the other hand, was narrowing, thinning down with each option that was taken away.

  She tried to look on the bright side. At least she was going home. The Mercedes sped through the Cornish countryside amid green pastures and hedgerows, and the salty tang of the sea was in her nostrils. She smiled, breathing deep. No matter what tragedies befell her, the smell of the sea could always lift her spirits.

  Spike was happy, too, she noted, glancing sideways at the bulldog. He loved riding in the motorcar. He sat in the passenger seat, his square head lifted into the wind that rushed past his wrinkled face and flapped his heavy jowls, an expression of canine ecstasy on his face.

  Julia returned her attention to the road ahead, and her smile faded, for she was nearly home, and she had no idea what she was going to do after that. She downshifted, slowing the vehicle, and turned onto the rutted lane that led to Dovecotes. At the end of the lane, she guided the motorcar into the narrow drive, came to a stop in front of the seventeenth-century farmhouse, and set the brake. She hopped down, circled to the back of the Mercedes, and pulled her small valise from the open boot. Whistling for Spike, she walked to the front door and unlocked it, and the bulldog she’d acquired two years ago jumped down from the vehicle and followed her into the house.

  Blinking at the dim interior after the bright sunshine outside, she set down her valise by the
stairs. Almost two years to the day since she’d been here with Trix. What a grand time they’d had that summer.

  Julia stood in the foyer for several minutes, looking around. Against the far wall of her tiny parlor, swathed in white sheeting, was her grandmother’s pianoforte, and she thought of how she and Trix had sat here with the windows open to the summer breeze, drinking champagne and playing comic songs. Just as when they were children, they’d toasted bread and cheese over the fire and walked barefoot on the small stretch of beach down below, explored the tide pools and taken midnight swims, and it was the freest, most glorious time she’d had since she was a girl.

  Julia swallowed past the lump in her throat. There was no point in standing here mooning about the times when she’d been happy. She had to think, to plan, to decide what to do. But first things first. Spike at her heels, she walked through the tiny foyer past the parlor and dining room, making for the kitchen at the back, where she took stock of what supplies she needed for the larder. Tea, of course, milk, sugar, bread, butter, perhaps a few eggs, and some fish paste for sandwiches. She didn’t need much, she knew, for she wouldn’t be staying long.

  Yardley would arrive at Marlowe’s villa tomorrow and discover she’d fled. No one at Pixy Cove would tell him where she’d gone, but he would simply have to go into Torquay and make a few inquiries. He would learn she had filled the Mercedes with petrol—for motorcars and their need for fuel were not a commonplace thing in the West Country, even in the seaside resort of Torquay. He would also discover that Giselle and Pierre had taken the early train to St. Ives, which meant they were following her to Dovecotes. He would follow on the first train he could, the afternoon one that would bring him to her doorstep about five o’clock tomorrow evening. Julia, pulling her little pocket watch from her skirt pocket, saw that she had thirty hours left. If she didn’t come up with a plan before then, she would have to catch a ship for the Continent out of St. Ives or Plymouth, as she had done so many times before, but really, what was the point?