by Mary Balogh
“You have changed your mind, Les, have you?” he asked his brother as the two of them rode their horses at a walk for the last mile back to the stables after a morning ride.
“Mind?” Lesley looked blank. “About what, Freddie?”
Frederick clucked his tongue and tossed a glance at the gray sky. “About what else?” he said. “Is there any other topic of conversation these days, Les? About Jule. Have you changed your mind about offering for her?”
Lesley frowned. “Offering for Jule,” he said. “The thing is, Freddie, I don't think she would have me.”
“You will not know unless you ask,” Frederick said. “And you have been dithering for a week, Les. I want to get on to the next stage of my own campaign, but I also want to give you a sporting chance.”
“I thought perhaps Gussie would be the one,” Lesley said “They’ve always liked each other, Freddie. Still do. He is with her more often than not. Always laughing, the two of them.”
“And that is not a promising sign at all, my lad,” Frederick said. “Not promising for Gussie, that is. It is very promising for you and me.”
Lesley looked blank again.
“If those two are lovers,” Frederick said, “I’ll eat my hat, Les. Whichever one you choose to make me bite into. No, Gussie is not in the running. Neither is Malcolm. He got together with her once at the top of the hill several days ago and spent all of five minutes with her. Then she went whooping down the steep side of the hill like a schoolboy let out of school for the summer holidays. He has not been near her since to my knowledge.”
“Dan?” Lesley said.
“Dan bristles with outrage every time he sets eyes on her,” Frederick said. “And sometimes even when he does not. Someone only has to mention her name. Besides, he has the divine Miss Morriston panting for him in town. Or probably not panting exactly—the chit is made of ice as far is I can observe. No, Les, I think the serious contenders can he narrowed down to you and me.”
“I like Jule,” Lesley said. “Can’t understand why Dan don’t.”
“For the very reason that we do,” Frederick said. “Jule is not ashamed to show that she is alive. When are you going to talk with her? If you are not, then I am going to proceed to sweep her off her feet.”
“You will anyway,” Lesley said, “even if I offer for her, Freddie.”
“Yes, granted,” Frederick said with a grin. “But at least you will not be able to say that I did not give you a sporting chance, Les. But it is true that I have never yet failed to bowl over any female I set my mind to bowling over. And Jule is ripe for the picking, if you will pardon the lamentable mixing of images.”
“But you never liked her in that way before,” Lesley said, frowning. “Did you, Freddie?”
“Neither did you,” Frederick said. “But she never came with Primrose Park before, Les. Only with a dowry. Dowries, no matter how generous, come to an end. Rents don’t.”
“I think someone should marry Jule because she is Jule,” Lesley said after frowning in thought for a while. “Not because of Primrose Park.”
Frederick chuckled. “And so someone will, my young idealist,” he said. “You know I am fond of her. I’ll give her all the affection she needs, Les. And all the pleasure she craves. And children too. Doubtless she will want some children and I suppose it would not hurt for me to have a son or two. Would it? Set up my dynasty and all that.” He laughed again.
Lesley drew his horse to a halt outside the stables. He was still frowning. “But it is the rents that are most important to you, Freddie,” he said, “not Jule. You wouldn’t marry her without them, would you?”
“Les,” his brother said, “this is the real world. This is not fantasyland. In this world money is necessary for survival.”
“Papa gives you plenty of money.” Lesley looked troubled. “He gives me plenty, Freddie, but he gives you more, I know. And you will inherit when Papa dies.”
“Which may be a long time in the future,” Frederick said. “Which I hope will be a long time in the future. In the meantime we both have to live. And you know that Papa is not the sort of person to whom one goes to ask for more blunt. For one thing it would be humiliating. And for another he would assume that sorrowful look he always used to have when we were lined up for canings. As if we had disappointed him beyond measure. As if the whipping was going to hurt him more than it hurt us. Gad, Les, he knows how to make one abject with guilt and misery.”
“You really do have big debts, then, Freddie?” Les asked. “They can’t be cleared with next quarter’s allowance? Even if I give you some of mine?”
Frederick swung down from his horse’s back and grinned. “Les,” he said, “you can do it almost as well as Papa. Yes, dear brother, I do have big debts. Bigger. And next quarter’s allowance has to be lived on. I’m afraid it is debtors’ prison for me or Papa’s sorrowful look or a political marriage—one of the three. On the whole I think the marriage is the best bet. And the fact that it is to be with Jule makes it a little more palatable than it would otherwise be. Actually the thought of a leg shackle is enough to make me break out in a cold sweat.”
Lesley slid from his horse’s back a little more slowly. “I think you should go to Papa, Freddie,” he said. “He won’t eat you, you know. And you are too old for a caning. Then you would be free.”
Frederick laughed and handed the reins of his horse to a waiting groom. If Les only knew, he thought, how much of a dent the paying of his debts would put even in their father’s fortune. “Until next time,” he said. “I am afraid I have a compulsive and rather expensive habit, Les. Though my luck could change any day and I could end up as rich as Croesus. That is a pleasant thought to dream on, now is it not?”
“I don’t think you should marry Jule,” Lesley said, relinquishing his own horse to the same groom. “I really don’t, Freddie. Not fair to her, you know. Jule deserves better.”
“She will think herself the most fortunate woman in the world,” Frederick said. “She will be the most fortunate woman. I’ll see to it, Les. I intend to treat her well. I know how to treat a woman. It is one of my innate talents and practiced skills.” He grinned again.
“You will give up all other women?” Lesley asked.
Frederick threw back his head and shouted with laughter.
“Then I think I had better talk with her,” Lesley said. “I really do, Freddie. I’m sorry if she chooses me. Sorry for your hopes, I mean. I don’t suppose she will, mind, but I think it would be best for her. I think I’ll talk to her as soon as possible. Today.”
“Why delay any longer?” Frederick asked, looking affectionately at his brother. “There she is now, Les, my boy, strolling in the formal gardens with Aunt Millie. I shall draw Aunt Millie away and leave the field clear to you. You see how much brotherly love I have? I’ll blight my own chances by giving you an opportunity to make your offer. I do believe the rain is even going to hold off.” He glanced up at the sky.
“All right, Freddie,” Lesley said, drawing a deep and audible breath. “I’ll do it. Let’s go.”
“That’s the boy, Les,” his brother said, slapping him on one shoulder.
And the thing was, Frederick thought, confident as he was of being able to win any woman he set himself to charm, and insignificant as Les’s opposition might seem, there could be no certainty about the outcome. One could never tell with Jule. She might choose Les just because she was Jule and had a habit of doing the unexpected.
That was part of her charm. And part of the excitement of the game. For though he desperately needed to win, he would not enjoy the process of winning if it were a certain thing—if there were no gamble involved.
Perhaps, he thought, he was an incurable gambler.
* * *
“And you will keep the parterre gardens,” Aunt Millie said as she strolled through them with Julia. “1 know you will, dear, because you have always been fond of them. And I have never held with these new ideas of doing away with
formal gardens and making parks look natural and green to the very doors of the house. If anyone wants natural landscape, I always say, then they should walk out onto common ground. Though much of that is disappearing to enclosures these days, is it not?”
“I love parterre gardens,” Julia said. “I love order and symmetry in nature—before a house anyway. But I may have no say in what happens with these gardens, Aunt Millie. I may well be moving away from here at the end of the month.”
“Oh, never say so, dear,” Aunt Millie said. “One of the nephews will offer for you, dear, if not all of them. They are all fond of you, I am sure, though that is hardly surprising. So am I. And a fine lot of young gentlemen they are too. I might not have stayed single myself if I had had such suitors vying for my hand. As it was, there were only gentlemen I had no interest in at all.” She sighed. “Though I regret not having had children. But then I was blessed with your dear mama as a niece to live in the same house and more lately I have been blessed with you, dear Julia.”
Julia turned to smile at her and then extended her smile to Frederick and Lesley, who were striding toward them, still dressed in their riding clothes. Things had been quiet for several days. She and Daniel had managed to avoid each other quite nicely, Malcolm was giving her a wider than wide berth, Gussie was her dear friend again, and Freddie was still keeping his distance, and still grinning and winking whenever he caught her eye. She wished he had continued with the promising line of courtship he had begun the evening they had strolled toward the lake, but he had not. And Les had made no move at all.
“I thought two roses had escaped from the rose arbor,” Frederick said when they were within earshot. “But when I looked more closely I saw it was Aunt Millie and Jule.”
Aunt Millie threw up her hands and laughed merrily. “Oh, Frederick,” she said, “how outrageous you are. Two roses, indeed. Perhaps Julia looks like a rose—indeed I am sure she is prettier than one. But I am just an old thing.”
“Precious gems are usually old things too, Aunt Millie,” he said. “And so are priceless paintings. And medieval tapestries. Now I swear that I saw a pink rose in the arbor this morning the exact shade of your dress. I am going to pluck it for you without further delay and thread it in your hair. It is an exquisite bloom. It will almost do you justice.” He bowed elegantly and offered his arm.
“Shameless flatterer,” Aunt Millie said, tapping him sharply on the arm before taking it. “It is Julia you should be taking to the rose arbor, Frederick. I don’t know what an old thing like me wants with a rose in her hair.”
“We will honor the rose,” he said. “Besides, Aunt, Julia is wearing green and I did not see any green roses in the arbor.”
“Foolish boy!” Aunt Millie said as she was borne off along one of the gravel walks.
Lesley smiled. “Hello, Jule,” he said.
Ah, so this was what that little scene was all about, was it? Lesley was about to make his move, with Freddie’s connivance. Julia smiled in return. “Hello, Les,” she said. “Did you have a pleasant ride?”
“Yes, we did, Jule,” he said. “The weather has turned cold but it was pleasant for a ride.”
“I know,” she said. “I rode early. Before breakfast.” Having found that she could no longer bring herself to swim in the early morning, she had taken to riding instead. For the first two mornings she had been quite decorous about it, donning one of her riding habits and having a sidesaddle placed on Flossie’s back. But she had met no one during those rides and for the last three mornings had worn her breeches and had been able to gallop and enjoy herself.
“Some females don’t get up until noon,” Lesley said. “They miss a lot. I like females who get up early. I like you, Jule.”
“Do you?” She smiled encouragingly. But he was merely beaming back at her. “Just because I get up early, Les?”
He looked blank for a moment and then startled. Then he laughed. She had always liked Lesley’s laugh. He always sounded and looked genuinely amused. “Oh, no,” he said. “No, no, Jule. I like you for everything. I have always liked you.”
“Thank you,” she said. “I have always liked you too, Les.”
“Thank you, Jule.” He beamed at her again.
Dear Les, she thought, trying to decide quite irrelevantly if he really was an inch or so shorter than she was or if they were on a level. They looked on a level, but then he was wearing riding boots while she wore silk slippers. Les was going to need as much encouragement as Malcolm, she could see.
“What did you think of Grandpapa’s will?” she asked him.
“Uncle’s will?” His smile broadened. “Very generous, Jule. He was a kind man, Uncle, even though he didn’t like anyone to know. Five hundred pounds was very generous. I was happy.”
Julia was hard put to it not to laugh out loud. Oh, dear. Perhaps he would need even more encouragement than Malcolm. “He did not leave me five hundred pounds,” she said. “He left me the chance to live at Primrose Park for the rest of my life if I marry one of his nephews. Do you think that was really like leaving me nothing, Les?”
“Nothing?” he said. “No, it was not nothing, Jule. Though you wouldn’t own Primrose Park, would you? And if your husband said you were to live somewhere else, you would have to go, wouldn’t you?”
“I would owe him obedience,” she said.
“And if he lost Primrose Park,” he said, “you would have nothing but a husband, would you, Jule?”
“Oh, dear,” she said. “How would he lose it?”
“If he spent too freely,” he said. “Gambled or something like that.”
“Do you gamble, Les?” she asked.
“Me?” He laughed again. “No, not me, Jule. I can never remember how to play a card game from one time to the next.”
They stood smiling at each other for a few silent moments.
“Let’s go and sit by the fountain, shall we, Les?” Julia suggested at last and took his arm to walk along the two gravel paths that would bring them to the marble structure and the wrought iron bench that circled its base. “Did you wish to talk to me about anything in particular?”
“Freddie and I thought it would be a good idea if I suggested you marry me, Jule,” he said. “Freddie said he would take Aunt Millie out of the way.”
“Did he?” She smiled. “Freddie thought you should ask me?”
“Yes,” he said. “He said he would give me a sporting chance before he asked you again. You are bound to choose Freddie, of course, Jule, but you can choose me if you wish. I think you would be better with me even though I don’t seem as good a bargain.”
“Why not?” she asked, releasing his arm to seat herself on the bench and patting the place beside her. He took it.
“I don’t have the looks or the brains that Freddie has,” he said. “And he is the older son. 1 don’t know much about women except that I like them.”
“And you like me,” she said. “You said so a little while ago.”
“And I like you, Jule.” He beamed at her.
“Why do you want to marry me?” she asked. “Just because you like me, Les? Or is it Primrose Park?”
“It’s Primrose Park, Jule,” he said eagerly, and Julia felt her heart sink. “I love it here. Everything is always so well kept. And the farms are prosperous. It is always fun being here.”
“Yes,” she said quietly. “It would be something to own it, would it not, Les? Especially for a man who cannot expect to inherit his father’s property.”
He beamed at her. “I want you to stay here, Jule,” he said. “I want it to stay as it is for you. This is where you belong. I don’t want you to lose it. And I don’t want you married to someone who will make you obey him and go somewhere where you don’t want to be. I want you to be free, Jule. I think Uncle should have left it to you. Maybe there was a good reason why he did not, but I think he ought to have.”
Julia leaned forward and set a hand over his. “Les,” she said, “you are so very sweet.
And kind. You would marry me so that I could be free to enjoy Primrose Park at my leisure? But what would you gain from the marriage?”
He gazed blankly at her. “I would be happy to see you happy,” he said at last. “I would look after you. But I would stay out of your way. You would not need to worry that I would be underfoot all the time. I think that would annoy you. I would do whatever you wanted me to do, Jule.” He flashed her a smile.
She squeezed his hand. “You would get very little pleasure from the marriage,” she said. “Do you get much pleasure from living, Les? What would you like to do most in life? If you could do anything?”
He gazed at her until his eyes grew dreamy. “I would travel,” he said. “All over Europe, Jule. Maybe all over the world. To see things. I can read about them but I can never remember them. I can’t picture them in my head. But when I see things, it is different. I saw the Elgin marbles. I felt it all. Here.” He touched a loosely closed fist to his heart.
“You could travel,” she said. “The wars are over.”
He stared at her. “Could I?” he said. “I had not thought about it, Jule. Only dreamed. But you would not like it, and I would need to stay here to look after you.”
She patted his hand again.
“Will you marry me, Jule?” he asked. “I think you should. I’ll look after you.”
“I know you would, Les,” she said. “I know you would make a most wonderful husband.”
He looked gratified. “Do you think so?” he asked.
“I know so,” she said. “But would I make a wonderful wife for you, Les? I would be marrying you just so that I could stay here and have a secure future. 1 could offer you nothing more than affection.”
“Will you, then, Jule?” he asked.
She shook her head. “I shall have to think about it, Les,” she said. “It is a most kind and generous offer. And I would not be able to ask for a gentler or more indulgent husband. But I need to think.”
“Take your time, Jule,” he said, getting to his feet. “No hurry. I’ll still be willing next week and the week after. I just wanted you to know that you don't have to leave here and that you don’t have to marry anyone who won’t treat you right.”