Juliana

by Bancroft, Blair

  A short time later they entered Hyde Park, joining the late afternoon throng on Rotten Row. Cathy’s eyes were huge, shining with excitement, her lips slightly parted in sheer awe. Totally forgetting her on-going attempt to improve herself, she whooshed out a breath and said, “Coo! Ain’t it grand?”

  Fetch scowled. “Guess I shoulda brought you here. Didn’t know you’d like it. I thought . . . well, I thought you scorned the nobs.”

  Cathy squirmed, eyes suddenly fixed firmly on her lap. “Reckon I did, but I guess I’m learning they ain’t all bad.”

  Like me? Juliana wondered. Or did the girl not include her among the “nobs”? And wasn’t that a lowering thought.

  “Reeves,” Juliana called to her coachman, “a turn around the Serpentine, if you please. I believe Cathy might like to feed the ducks.”

  “Oh, my lady, can I?”

  Fetch made an exaggerated survey of the shining barouche, its blue velvet seats, the coachman’s box. He even peered behind them at the unoccupied footman’s platform. “You have a bit of bread tucked somewhere I can’t see, my lady?” he drawled.

  “Never fear,” Juliana told him. “There’s always someone eager to sell food for the ducks.” Cathy clapped her hands and gave Fetch the eye, a telling glance that said she was delighted someone had managed to put a dent in his superior attitude.

  When they arrived at the small lake, Juliana offered Fetch a few coins to buy bread, but he swiftly declined. “I have my own blunt, my lady. At least enough to buy bread.” Oh dear God, he was so proud, so strikingly handsome. Nick Black looked like a rough-edged, though obviously successful, version of the street child he once had been. Fetch did not. Fetch looked every inch the scion of a noble house. They made a pretty sight, the two young people standing on the bank, Cathy tossing bits of bread to the ducks and Fetch standing guard beside her, evidently determined not to stoop to childish games.

  A cry of anguish pierced the air. “Stop!” The word was high-pitched, more a wail than a command. Juliana swung around to find an elderly lady of regal bearing, seated in an elegant open barouche. Her hands were pressed over her mouth, her eyes fixed on the lake, while a companion at her side bent over her, obviously concerned over the woman’s sudden agitation.

  Their carriages were nearly touching, and Juliana could not help but hear what the older woman said. “It’s my Marcus,” she choked out. “To the life. The image of the portrait hanging in the gallery on Upper Wimpole Street.”

  “My lady,” the companion returned, her voice full of compassion, “you know Colonel Ramsey is lost to us.” But as the younger woman followed the white-haired lady’s gaze, she added so softly Juliana almost didn’t catch the words: “Though I must admit the likeness is remarkable.”

  “I will speak to him. Bring him here.”

  “My lady, I cannot think it wise.”

  “Immediately.” The elderly woman turned to the footman, riding behind. “Fetch the boy, Thomas. I suppose the girl must come as well.”

  The companion, clearly mortified, caught Juliana’s eye. “I do beg your pardon, my lady, but are you acquainted with the young gentleman on the bank? Is he one of your party?”

  “He is,” Juliana returned, an almost unholy glee catching her in its grip. What was happening here was momentous, she was certain of it. She also experienced a flash of Cathy’s resentment and Fetch’s incredible pride. “And I find it most remarkable that the footman should be told to fetch the young man, for that is what he calls himself. Fetch. Because when he was a boy that’s all he ever heard, ‘Boy, fetch this’ and ‘Boy, fetch that.’”

  “Merciful Heavens,” the companion exclaimed, “you cannot mean he is of low birth.”

  “Nonsense!” the older woman barked.

  “Here he is,” Juliana said with something close to a smirk. “He may tell you himself.”

  Fetch stood there, every inch a lithe young Viking warrior, regarding the elderly lady as if she were the supplicant, he the titled gentleman. “You wished to speak to me, ma’am?”

  “She is Lady Matilda, daughter of the Duke of Cranbourne,” the companion snapped. “You address her as ‘My lady.’”

  Fetch never took his eyes off the white-haired woman drinking in the sight of him. She visibly gathered herself, pushing through emotions that had momentarily stoppered her voice. “You are the image of my second son, boy. Who are your parents? Our family trees must cross in the not-too-distant past.”

  “Me crossed with you?” Fetch laughed. “Beggin’ your pardon, my lady, but my ma did what she had to do when she was left to raise me alone. She died when I was a nipper, and that was when the other girls in the house took me on. I was useful fetching and carrying, so that’s how I came to call myself Fetch.” I have no other name, for I never knew my pa, and that’s the God’s truth.”

  Lady Matilda’s companion, who had emitted a series of sharp gasps during Fetch’s story asked, “Are you saying you were raised in a . . . a bawdy-house?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Fetch looked her straight in the eye, and smiled.

  “What year were you born?” Lady Matilda asked.

  “Near as anyone could remember, sometime in 1802, my lady.”

  “That was the year Marcus served in London as a member of the Royal Horse Guards.”

  “Marcus, my lady?”

  “Undoubtedly your father, young man. Colonel Marcus Ramsey, lost at Waterloo, though if he were here now, I’d not hesitate to read him a scold for abandoning you.” Juliana heard Cathy gasp, though she herself had come to the same conclusion some minutes earlier.

  “I beg your pardon, my lady, but me and you are as far apart as Hyde Park to the moon. Looking like your son makes no never mind. That’s just trick of nature. I live with Mr. Nicholas Black on Princes Street. He took me in and polished me a bit, but I’m still far from a gentleman and never will be. I’ve no place in your world nor you in mine.”

  “You are my son’s child,” Lady Matilda declared, not a bit put off by mention of the dreaded Nick Black. “You will call on me tomorrow, and I will show you his portrait at exactly your age. There can be no doubt.”

  “My lady—”

  “Excuse me,” Juliana interrupted. “Fetch, be quiet a moment. My lady, I will discuss this with his guardian. I suspect he will wish to accompany Fetch on any visit to your home. Will that be acceptable? I fear few homes in Mayfair welcome Nick Black.”

  The companion had gone pale, Juliana noted and found she was enjoying herself. What a marvelous twist of fate, if this were true. Lady Matilda was bound to do something for the boy. Not that he wasn’t destined to take over Nick’s empire, but now that Cecilia was increasing and with the likelihood of other children to follow . . .

  “I will welcome them both.”

  “Fetch, make your bow to the lady. Mr. Black must hear of this immediately.”

  Fetch was still sputtering as they exited the park. “It’s not possible, my lady. I ain’t related to no duke.”

  “Certainly not if it’s going to inspire you to forget how to speak proper English.”

  “Unfair, my lady. But me, by-blow of some high and mighty Guards officer? That’s just plain stupid, that is. Lady’s dicked in the nob.”

  “I think it’s grand,” Cathy cried. “Oh!” Her joy suddenly dimmed, a frown marring her pale forehead. “Far too grand for the likes of me,” she whispered. “I–I’m going to lose you!” And she burst into tears.

  Fetch swept her into his arms, murmuring what Juliana supposed were reassurances and sweet nothings. Oh dear, oh dear, nothing like turmoil in the infantry to take her mind off her own troubles.

  God bless Lady Matilda.

  Chapter 11

  Becoming betrothed had not gone as planned. Darius scowled at the lease documents for the cottage in St. John’s Woods, seeing only Natalia’s face as he made his less-than-loverlike proposal of an immediate wedding. Devil take all females! She’d seen through him in a flash. Not that he could
have expected anything else the way he had stormed into her drawing room at half six in the evening, spouting nonsense about special licenses and immediate marriage to the woman he had abruptly abandoned at her door only an hour earlier.

  “My dear Darius,” she had drawled, one hand draped along the back of a sofa, the rich satin of her teal blue gown artfully displayed over its cream brocade upholstery. “I am honored by your offer, of course—we might even be well suited. But what, I wonder, has precipitated such haste? You will have the tabbies counting on their fingers, my dear. And I can’t have that, you know. And,” she added, narrowing her eyes at him, “I would prefer an offer made with more heart and less calculation . . . and without the touch of venom I sense beneath it all.”

  “Dammit, Natalia!” Darius spun around and stalked to one of the room’s tall windows, fists clenched at his sides. Outside, Berkeley Square—now deserted by children, their nannies, and other residents taking the air among the park’s greenery—basked in the slanted rays of the late afternoon sun,. But carriages still rolled by, ladies returning from shopping and visits, gentlemen returning from their clubs to dress for the evening, a few servants scurrying along the walkways completing errands for their employers. All so normal, when he had just made a complete debacle of his only proposal to anyone besides his Jewel.

  Was that the problem then? He hadn’t really meant it? Darius Wolfe, the great negotiator, had dashed off a proposal of marriage with about as much finesse as one of Black’s bully boys. Natalia knew, of course, that his heart was not engaged. But how could he have been so inept as to make it obvious? Devil take it, he was a complete idiot. He owed her better than that.

  Darius paced back to the sofa and the waiting countess, wondering if this was how the French aristocrats felt when walking the last few feet to the guillotine. Shite! There he went again, cynicism edging out all the more tender emotions he should be feeling. The emotions that should have been inspired by the lovely sight of her dark beauty so perfectly displayed in a drawing room of gold and cream with bits of burgundy scattered here and there. She was, after all, a desirable woman, intelligent, well-born, and wealthy, whose vision of the future matched his own. He would be mad to have second thought about such an alliance.

  “I beg your pardon, Natalia,” Darius offered. “I have done this badly, the fault entirely mine. I will return when head and heart are more perfectly in tune.” With that, he had proffered a stiff bow and exited the room.

  The wonder was, she had not ordered her butler to turn him away from the door when he called again two days later. Nor had she refused his carefully crafted offer delivered in what Darius considered a stultifyingly correct manner. Though he had to admit he found her smile of satisfaction a salve to his wounded pride. The hard-working man of the City was to marry a countess. He would have a life’s companion. Children.

  He would grow old without his Jewel.

  A cold breeze swept through his office, as if someone had opened the window to a winter wind.

  Too late for regrets. The betrothal announcement had been sent to the newspapers, the countdown to an autumn wedding begun. Each tick of the clock boomed in his head like a clap of thunder. He was to be married. To Natalia, Countess of Charlbury.

  Not to Juliana, Baroness Rivenhall.

  Not to his Jewel.

  Who didn’t want him.

  Wouldn’t have him.

  A compatible wife. Children. That’s the goal, you idiot. A new life awaits

  But not if you can’t turn your back on the old.

  Fuck!

  Juliana’s brows raised as she read the note from Nick Black. The only other written communication she had received from him had been the summons to his house the night he’d found an unconscious Cecilia at the foot of Longmere’s front steps. She’d never questioned how he knew of her association with Cecilia. Nick Black knew everything.

  Then again, perhaps not, because it would appear he was in search of support for his visit to Lady Matilda. According to Cecilia, who had arrived on her doorstep bearing Nick’s note at the shocking hour of ten that morning, his vast network of informants had discovered that Matilda was indeed the daughter of the Duke of Cranbourne. At seventeen she had been sold to Jacob Ramsey, a merchant prince in the midlands, in return for settlements fit for a queen. She had borne three children: the elder son who was involved in his father’s business, a daughter who had married well and produced a bevy of grandchildren, and Marcus Ramsey, who had joined the cavalry at twenty, risen to the rank of colonel, and died leading his men in a charge at Waterloo.

  The Ramsey families leased two houses, side by side, on Upper Wimpole Street. Which meant that Fetch and his mentor would likely be confronted by an array of hostile Ramseys, with all but Lady Matilda suspecting the boy was either an imposter or set on wringing as much money from them as possible.

  Juliana’s lips curled into a anticipatory smile. No wonder Nick was asking for her support. Oh yes, she would be delighted to witness this confrontation. It promised to be monumental. The lord of the Underworld versus the family of a merchant prince whose wealth came close to rivaling her own.

  Nick Black and Fetch called for her at half one in a carriage whose glossy sides had been polished to mirror-like perfection. Juliana suspected that for once in his life, Nick Black actually felt a frisson of unease. He might be the son of a marquess, but he had grown up on the streets, his early years spent as a mudlark, scavenging the flotsam of the Thames. He was likely more determined to show Jacob Ramsey that he too knew how to build a fortune from scratch than he was uneasy about Lady Matilda’s high-born rank.

  “Mr. Black,” Juliana asked, “do you think all the Ramseys will be present?”

  Nick’s steel-gray eyes stared back at her. “If you heard you had a surprise grandson or nephew, a by-blow who might wish to batten himself on the family, would you be there to greet him?”

  “Oh dear,” she murmured. “I had rather thought to enjoy this—my curiosity is truly piqued—but now . . .”

  “I beg your pardon,” Nick said. “Will this further complicate your return to society? I never meant—”

  “Of course you didn’t.” Juliana took a moment to consider the matter. “No, truly, I would not miss this for the world.”

  “It’s all a hum, anyway,” Fetch declared. “I ain’t no grandson of a duke.”

  “Mind your language,” Nick barked. “I haven’t spent good money on teaching you better, only to have you play street urchin in front of a lady and a whole passel of Ramseys who are as likely to use their blunt as a bludgeon as I am.”

  “Yes, sir,” Fetch grumbled, but his eyes sparked defiance. Juliana had no idea what the boy would do when confronted by his alleged relatives.

  Juliana peered out the carriage window as they rolled to a stop in front of prosperous-looking townhouse on Upper Wimpole Street—four stories above ground with a wrought iron fence guarding the steps leading down to the kitchen area. The great confrontation was about to begin. For Fetch’s sake, she hoped Lady Matilda’s allegation was true. The boy deserved to know his roots, even if nothing more came of this meeting.

  Oh yes, she was looking forward to the coming encounter.

  Except . . .

  A perfectly ridiculous vision of Darius riding up on a white charger and sweeping her away momentarily blotted out the Ramsey residence. And then it was gone, nothing left but the rattle of harness, the whuffling of the horses, and a footman throwing open the carriage door. This was it then.

  If only Fetch behaved himself.

  The Ramseys were all there, lined up in the drawing room, like a line of redcoats ready to do battle with the French. They lacked only the scarlet coats and the rifles. Lady Matilda, eyes shining with joy, and seemingly unaware of the tensions surrounding her, introduced the elderly but still imposing figure of her husband Jacob, the family patriarch, and their son Blake and his wife. But her introduction of her daughter Eleanor and her husband, was cut short by,
“By God, Matty, you were right. He’s Marcus to the life.”

  “Father!” Blake protested.

  “You don’t know your own brother?” Jacob Ramsey roared.

  “He is indeed much like,” Eleanor ventured. “Shall we go to the gallery and look at the portrait? Was that not what we planned, Mother?”

  Jacob Ramsey gave a decisive nod, offered his wife his arm, and led the way to a gallery at the rear of the house. The portrait was nearly life-size, a young Marcus Ramsey dressed for riding, his blond hair hanging long, blue eyes gazing at the world with a half-smile and a challenge.

  “Stand there, lad,” Jacob Ramsey commanded. “Right next to the picture, and let us look at you.”

  Juliana cast a quick glance at Nick Black, who showed no emotion, but she could feel his flinch, the same reaction she herself felt. No one, except Nick himself, spoke to Fetch in that tone of voice.

  “No need to stand next to him when any fool can see I’m ’is spittin’ image,” Fetch returned. “But it’s a good thing he’s just a bit of paint and canvas, cuz if he stepped down from there, I’d knock him flat.”

  The Ramseys gasped in near unison, and Juliana could only wonder as Nick Black remained silent, his face impassive.

  “Explain yourself, boy,” Jacob Ramsey snapped.

  “If that man is my father—and I ain’t sayin’ he is—then he abandoned my mother and me. Ma died young and I’d prob’ly be dead too if it wasn’t for Nick Black. I don’t want yer money, don’t want yer name. I only come cuz the lady axed me to, ’n’ I felt sorry for her.” He offered Lady Matilda, now white-faced, a slight bow, as if in apology for his descent into street talk as well as his rejection. “She’s a good woman, and if’n she’s my gramma, then I’ll come see her from time to time.” He fixed Jacob Ramsey with his fierce blue gaze. “If’n you don’t bar the door to me, that is.”