After Forever, A Whisper of Scandal Novel

by Julie Johnstone

  Lord Cameron stepped toward her. “Julianna, please. What will you do? Let me protect you.”

  “No.” She cringed at the harsh sound of her own voice and made herself meet his gaze. He was a good man and she knew he only wanted to help her, but she could not let him help her by marrying her. She studied him. He didn’t appear angry, but rather perplexed with his tilted head and furrowed brow.

  “I…I’m sorry. It’s not you. It’s me,” she blurted.

  She brushed past them and hurried out the door, only to collide with the butler who caught her at the elbow. Once she was steady, he immediately withdrew his hand.

  “My lady, I’m so sorry. I was just coming to tell you that Lady Davenport is waiting in the parlor to see you.”

  Thank goodness! At least now, David would not try to drag her back in there to convince her to marry Lord Cameron. It was noble of him to offer to marry her, yes, but she couldn’t marry him, she just couldn’t. As she hurried away from the breakfast room, she tried to block the fear creeping into her mind. If she did not come up with somewhere to live and a way to earn money, the only choice for her would be to marry again. The thought made her almost stumble.

  She paused outside the parlor door and tried to compose herself, but the minute she opened the door and saw her friend’s smiling face, Julianna’s throat began to spasm with the need to cry on Audrey’s shoulder. She swallowed hard and walked with what she hoped looked to be composure, but as she sat beside Audrey on the settee, Audrey grabbed her hands.

  “Dearest, what’s the matter? You look as if you are about to faint.”

  “Do I?” Julianna smiled, but her cheeks felt brittle as glass. “I’ve just learned that David and Helena are in a rather desperate financial state. And Helena is expecting.”

  “Ah. Now I see why you look sickly. I suppose given the meager funds Henry left you, they think you should marry.”

  “They do, and I already have a proposal.”

  Audrey winked. “My, don’t you work fast? And here I was under the impression that you were vehemently opposed to remarrying.”

  “Please don’t jest,” Julianna moaned, trying not to sound miserable, but she was not deaf. She could hear the bleakness of her own tone. “I will never marry again.”

  “Dearest.” Audrey shook her head. “Didn’t your mother ever tell you the danger of using the word never? One can appear so contrary when they end up doing the very thing they said they never would. Especially when it comes to a man. I fear I’m going to have to remind you of what you said one day, and I have to admit I’ll do it with pleasure.”

  Julianna didn’t want to sound dramatic, but she wanted Audrey to put all thoughts of matchmaking out of her mind. She held her friend’s gaze. “I’d rather be a nanny to ten ill-bred children for the rest of my life than a wife to the most gallant man you could find. I cannot, simply cannot do it again. I don’t―I don’t have it in m-me.” Her voice broke and her shoulders slumped.

  “Of course not,” Audrey murmured as she slipped her arm around Julianna. “Not yet, you don’t.”

  “Audrey―”

  “Let’s not argue the point. Time will tell which one of us is right.”

  Julianna leaned against her friend. “You must promise not to try to play matchmaker between me and the gentlemen of the ton.”

  She expected her friend to argue, as she was prone to do, but Audrey nodded. “Of course I won’t do that, dearest! I’m not a simpleton. Tell me what I can do to help?”

  “If you happen to know of a position that’s open where the only qualification is that you are a lady of the ton then I daresay let me know about it,” Julianna joked. When Audrey did not laugh, Julianna patted her friend on the arm. “I’m only joking, of course. I know such a position does not exist.”

  A slight smiled pulled at Audrey’s lips until it became a grin. “Darling, I think I may know of something.”

  Julianna gaped. “Really? What is it?”

  “A position as a tutor with a friend of mine in desperate need. I think he will pay rather handsomely, and it will be a way for you to gain a reference if you do need to join the ranks.”

  “But I’m not qualified to be a tutor.”

  “You are perfectly qualified for the kind of lessons Mr. Wolverton requires.”

  Julianna’s pulse quickened in the most disconcerting way at the mention of the greyish, blue-eyed, easy-smiling gentleman she’d met in the library last night. “I cannot imagine what sort of lessons he might want.” But she could imagine the sort of lessons he might give a lady based on his former mistress’s words from last night.

  “Julianna, you’re blushing.”

  “Am I?” She pressed her hands to her hot cheeks. “This room is stuffy, isn’t it?”

  “If you say so.” A slight, unnerving smirk pulled at Audrey’s lips.

  Julianna resisted the urge to huff at her friend. Instead, she said as serenely as she could muster, “Exactly what sort of tutelage does Mr. Wolverton require?”

  “The kind that will ensnare him a proper wife for his very improper self.”

  A wicked image filled Julianna’s head of Mr. Wolverton on the stairs, introducing his wife to his scandalizing ways. The blush that had heated her cheeks swept across her neck and chest. Whatever was wrong with her? She inhaled a long, slow breath. “Do you mean to say he wants someone to tutor him on how to be a proper gentleman?”

  “Yes. Sounds dreadfully boring, doesn’t it? I tried to talk him out of it, but he’s rather insistent. You see, he has a young daughter, and he wants her to have a proper mother that will ease her way into Society.”

  “Yes, I know about his daughter.”

  “You know?” Audrey’s voice held a tinge of wonder.

  Julianna nodded, enjoying the rare moment of shocking her very outrageous friend. “He mentioned her when we met, as well as the fact that he was looking for a wife. In fact, he jokingly proposed to me.”

  “My, my.” Audrey gave her a sly smile. “You are quite the Incomparable for a woman who doesn’t even want a man again.”

  Julianna scowled. “He was not serious.”

  “If you say so.”

  “Stop saying that. Every time you do, I feel as if you are placating me out loud but secretly don’t agree at all with what I’ve said.”

  “I agree with some of it, but we can hash out the particulars at a later date. Sin is expecting me home. Mr. Wolverton needs a proper woman of the ton to teach himself and his daughter how to be a proper gentleman and young lady. You have the exact qualifications to do that. He wants the instruction to occur at his home in Yarmouth, and as it so happens, Sin and I have a home there that we rarely visit. You could go there immediately with Liza, which would solve the problem of you needing somewhere new to stay, and you could tutor Mr. Wolverton and his daughter, which will provide you funds to live on. Of course, we don’t keep a full staff at the house, but there is a butler and a cook, a married couple, that stay there just in case we decide to visit. What do you think?”

  Julianna thought Henry must be keeping an eye on her from up above and helping to answers her prayers. She swallowed. “I think it sounds perfect. Do you think Mr. Wolverton will hire me?”

  Audrey snorted. “I daresay he’ll jump at the chance to employ you. He told me of a few of the interested candidates he’s interviewed and they sounded dreadful. I’ll send him a note and let him know you’re coming. Say a week?”

  “Perfect. That will give me time to ready myself and Liza to leave. I don’t suspect we’ll ever be back to live here again, as it would be such a financial burden on David.”

  Audrey squeezed Julianna’s shoulder. “Are you sad?”

  She thought about how she felt for a moment, and then frowned. “Not as sad as I thought I’d be.”

  “Then why are you frowning?”

  “Because it doesn’t seem right to feel excited about leaving the home I shared with Henry. But there are just so many memories here, I c
annot help but think a fresh start might be just the thing. I feel treacherous at the thought.”

  Audrey sighed. “Darling, Henry would have wanted you to go on with life, not just for Liza but for yourself.”

  Julianna shook her head as tears welled in her eyes. “No.” The word was a choked whisper. “He did not want me to go on that way. Carry on for Liza, yes, but not with another man.”

  “You cannot know such a thing,” Audrey said in a tone one would use to scold a petulant child.

  Julianna clutched the material of her dress as she met her friend’s gaze. “I can.” She swallowed back the tears clogging her throat. “The last thing he ever said to me was, Never replace me, Julianna.”

  “Blast.” Audrey sat back with a fierce frown. “You may hate me for what I’m about to say, but Henry always was a selfish man.”

  One Week Later

  Yarmouth, England

  Why was it so blasted hard to find a qualified candidate to tutor his daughter? Nash cursed under his breath as the door closed behind the last, most categorically wrong candidate he’d interviewed yet. He’d given up on finding one person to help turn his daughter into a proper young lady and himself into a proper gentleman. That possibility seemed about as likely as Lavinia coming to her senses and actually wanting to participate in Maggie’s life.

  Nash twitched at the thought. Now that he’d firmly closed the book on the chapter of life that included Lavinia, Maggie, and him possibly being a real family, he saw with the clarity of detachment that that novel would have been a fairy tale. A very bad one where the mother turned out to be wolf who ate her children. Lavinia’s selfishness had saved him and Maggie, and he could mark guilt over not giving Maggie her real mother off his list of things to feel bad about. He’d tried to make them a family, and luckily, it hadn’t worked.

  And on that note, he needed to continue trying to secure a proper tutor for Maggie. Nash yanked out a piece of foolscap to pen another, hopefully better, advertisement that would bring more qualified candidates to his doorstep. Before he could dip the quill in the ink, a loud knock sounded at his study door.

  “Enter.”

  Only Esther would dare venture into his study to see how the last interview had gone. The rest of the staff knew to give him a wide berth when he was in a black mood.

  Typical of Esther, she strode into the room without so much as an apologetic glance, her blue skirts swishing and her peppered hair forming a mildly amusing frizzy halo around her head. She plunked her hands on her hips and stared him down as she used to do when he’d worked under her in the orphan house kitchen, and she knew good and well he’d stolen a piece of bread.

  Esther hiked up one wiry, grey eyebrow over eyelids that had lately started to droop more and more with age. “I told you that woman was no match for Maggie.”

  “I assume by that woman you mean Miss Bechum,” he asked, setting down the pen and leaning back in his chair.

  “You know I do,” Esther muttered.

  Despite his sour mood, a smile pulled at his lips when he recalled his daughter’s stout refusal to dip into a proper curtsey as requested by Miss Bechum. The woman’s face had turned dark and foreboding as she suggested Nash take a switch to the child, but it hadn’t fazed Maggie. It had angered the devil out of him, and he’d known immediately any woman who suggested such a punishment was not the tutor for his daughter.

  Maggie’s spirit and backbone made him hopeful she’d never be one of those women who fell prey to a bad husband, yet that problem was years away. Right now, the stubbornness he appreciated in her was making it impossible to find a tutor. Actually, it had been destined to be a challenge, but his little willful daughter was making it even more so. He sighed as he stared at the bold slashes through each candidate’s name. There was no one left to interview, but even if there had been, he was not overly hopeful that the lady would meet his requirements.

  Esther sat on the edge of his desk on top of a pile of documents he needed to read and speared him with a frown. The temptation to scold her for crumpling his papers was on the tip of his tongue, but he bit back the reproach. He’d not be alive if it hadn’t been for the fact that thirty-five years ago she’d been a worker at Lady of Mercy Orphan House. She had been assigned garbage duty on the day he’d been left on the steps, exactly like the trash she’d been taking out. She’d scooped him up and cared for him, like the doll she’d never had―in her words.

  Grasping the edge of the contract Sutherland had sent him and carefully pulling them from underneath Esther, he set them aside. “She needs someone much younger. And more compassionate.”

  “I told you as much.”

  “And I agree wholeheartedly. The problem is getting someone younger to apply. Or a lady who is really part of the ton.” He rubbed at the knots in his neck. “Perhaps I’ve set an impossible task.”

  Esther patted his hand. “Ack. Giving up isn’t like you. Aren’t you the boy who fought with his fist to earn enough money to start a club, and then built that club into the most successful gaming hell in London?”

  He chuckled at the unmistakable pride on Esther’s face.

  Esther stood. “Have you used up all your fight? If so, I’ll just go tell your dimple-cheeked darling she’ll never see the inside of Almacks because her mama didn’t want her and her papa decided it was too difficult to convince a proper lady to be her tutor.”

  He scowled. “You always know just what to say.”

  “Of course I do, dearie. I’m the mama God meant you to have.” She gave him a wink. “Now, go take a break outside in the sunshine with your sweet little daughter. I guarantee you when you come back in you’ll have a new plan of attack.”

  “That sounds like a perfect―”

  “Miss Maggie!” the butler barked as he fairly careened through the study door after Maggie, who was giggling and squealing as she dashed across the hardwood. Her chubby five-year-old legs pumped vigorously, and her blonde curls bounced on her shoulders as she clutched a silver tray―which suspiciously looked to be the letter tray―in one hand and her dolly in the other.

  “It’s mine!” she cried out. “I’m using it for my dolly.”

  Maggie went flying around Nash’s desk, scrambled up behind him, and falling to her knees, she grasped him around the legs. The silver server in her hand banged against his shin and fell to the floor with a clatter as the letters scattered across the floor.

  A loud groan emanated from Mr. Reed as he rushed around the desk and looked down at the letters strewn all over. The man glanced up from the papers, his face red and his mouth gaping open. After a long, silent moment, he clamped his jaw shut with a snap, tugged his coat back into order, swiped the hair off his forehead, and motioned with the utmost dignity down at the mess. “I tried to stop her.”

  The wobble in his voice betrayed his distress. Nash bent down and scooped his daughter up under his arm. With his free hand, he clamped Mr. Reed on the shoulder. “Don’t fret yourself, Reed.” He smiled down at his wiggly daughter. “I know personally how hard she can be to contain when she hasn’t had the opportunity to get her energy out. I’ll see to that while you see to this.” He motioned down to the letters. “Is this acceptable?”

  Mr. Reed nodded. “Thank you, sir. I’ll leave the letters on your desk for you to peruse at your convenience.”

  “That will be perfect,” Nash agreed, already striding toward the door.

  He swung his daughter around to sit her on his hip as he walked. His footsteps echoed in the quiet halls of the large portrait gallery, and he chuckled as he always did when he strode through the room. The walls were currently barren, save two portraits, because he didn’t have any family portraits―or family, for that matter―to hang their likenesses up.

  He stopped in front of the portraits of Maggie and Esther, which hung side by side, and recalled the builder’s stuttering plea that Nash should not have a portrait gallery in his house since he did not have any family to speak of. As if Nash didn’t
know that. That was part of the reason he’d wanted the damned gallery. To remind him where he’d come from, where he was, and where he intended to end up. He hugged his daughter, and she hugged him back as she looked up at herself. She turned to him with wide blue eyes and said, “Next, we need to put up a picture of my mother.”

  “Oh?” He cocked his eyebrows as he swallowed a lump in his throat. “Do you have a lady in mind?”

  She wrinkled her nose as she thought for a moment. “Not yet, but I’ll know her when I see her.”

  “How will you―”

  “Skip stones, Papa,” she interrupted.

  Laughing, he set her down as they strolled toward the terrace doors and out into the sunshine. “All right. We can skip stones at the river, but stay in my sight.”

  With her dolly hanging in her clutches, she ran ahead down the steps and onto the broad graveled path that coursed the length of the garden. In and out of shadows she skipped. She appeared so tiny, surrounded on either side by the high walls covered in dark, lush creepers, that his heart tugged in his chest. He inhaled deeply as he strode behind her, enjoying the blooming white lily bushes and rose shrubs. When she got to the end of the path and pushed the wooden door open that led to the brick-paved path and short dirt road to the river beyond, he cursed, realizing he had forgotten to re-latch the door. Immediately, he quickened his pace.

  “Maggie,” he called, glimpsing her bright-yellow dress fluttering out of sight at the bend where the brick ended and the dirt began.

  When she didn’t reappear or answer his call, he broke into an easy jog, counting in his mind the steps it would take her to get to the river. She knew better than to go in the water without him, but if she were to trip and fall…

  Despite the heat of the day, he broke into an instant cold sweat as he raced down the winding path. As he stepped onto the dirt road, a scream pierced his ears and split the bright beautiful day with a terrible certainty that Maggie was in trouble. Dust flew up as he sprinted down the road and turned the corner toward the well-worn trail to the landing and the water. Vegetation rustled as he shoved low-hanging leafy branches, grown thick over the summer, out of his way.