by Louise Allen
‘You made it clear that you did not require my interference.’ She tried to say it lightly, but his arm stiffened under her hand.
‘I am sorry you see it like that,’ Will said. ‘But there can only be one master giving orders or it confuses the servants and the workers. And I am the master.’
‘I realise that.’ Julia bit her lip. If he was prepared to be conciliatory, then she must not be grudging. ‘And perhaps I had not taken that into account sufficiently when you came home. But this has been my life and my responsibility for three years. It is what interests me, what has always interested me. I do not want to displace you—I could not do that even if I wanted to—but I cannot bear to be shut out. May I not be involved? Can we not discuss things together?’
He was silent as he opened a gate for her. ‘Will, I will go mad if you expect me to retire into the house and become a domestic paragon!’
‘You seem to be that already,’ he remarked. ‘I do not recall the house ever looking better.’
‘Thank you. But there is nothing left to do except maintain it, whereas there is always something with the estate.’ He raised an eyebrow and she knew she was being too enthusiastic, but she could not help herself. ‘I love it! There are always new things to try, experiments to plan, even a crisis or two to enliven the week.’ They stopped abruptly, confronted by a six-foot wide patch of mire where the cows had churned up the entrance to the milking yard after an unseasonal cloudburst a few days before. ‘See? This needs filling with rubble and tamping down.’
Will stopped, pushed his hat firmly on to his head, took her around the waist and swung her over the mud to a large flat stone in the middle, hopped across to it himself and then swore under his breath. ‘I’ve misjudged this—there isn’t enough room to stand securely and swing you across to the hard ground.’ They clung together in the middle, swaying dangerously.
‘You must let me go or we’ll both fall in. We will just have to wade,’ Julia said. Will was enjoyably strong and large to cling to, even if it did seem they were both about to land in the mud. What we must look like… ‘I have old boots on.’
‘Well, I have not!’ Will protested as he took a firmer grip around her waist. ‘These are Hoby’s best.’
‘They are very beautiful boots.’ She had noticed. And noticed too how well they set off his muscular legs. ‘If I go, then you will have room to get your balance and jump.’ An irrepressible desire to laugh was beginning to take hold of her. Where on earth had that come from? Relief, perhaps, after the cathartic tears in the church.
‘I am not going to leave my wife to wade through the mud in order to protect my boots,’ Will said. Julia managed to tip her head back far enough to see the stubborn set of his jaw. There was a small dark mole under the point of it and the impulse to kiss it warred with the need to giggle. He sounded so very affronted to find himself in this ridiculous position.
‘If we shout loudly enough, someone will come and they can fetch planks or a hurdle,’ she suggested. ‘Or is that beneath your dignity?’
‘Yes,’ Will agreed and she saw the corner of his mouth turn up. ‘It is. I feel enough of an idiot, without an audience of sniggering farmhands. Can you put your arms around my neck?’
Julia wriggled to lift her arms. The stone tipped with a sucking sound. ‘I think it is sinking. How deep can this mud hole be?’
‘We are not going to find out.’ Will put his hands under her bottom. ‘Jump up and get your legs around my hips.’
‘My skirts—’
‘Are wide enough,’ he said with a grunt as he boosted her up and then, with a lurch, made a giant stride to the milking-parlour threshold with Julia clinging like a monkey round his neck. She gave a faint scream as he landed off balance, jolting the breath out of her, then, with a ghastly inevitability, they were falling.
Will twisted and came down first into a pile of straw with Julia on top of him. ‘Ough!’
They lay there gasping for breath until Will said, ‘Would you mind moving your elbow? Otherwise we are endangering the future heir.’
Shaking with laughter, stunned to find she could laugh about it, Julia untangled herself and flopped back beside him. ‘At least it is clean straw.’
‘You find this funny?’ He was grinning with the air of a man caught out by his own amusement. It was the first time she had realised that he had a sense of the ridiculous and it was surprisingly attractive.
‘Exceedingly,’ she admitted. ‘Look at us! You have lost your hat somewhere, you have straw in your hair, your shirt is coming untucked from your breeches and, my lord, despite your exquisite boots, you look the picture of a country swain tumbling his girl in a haystack.’
‘And what do you resemble, I wonder?’ Will raised himself on one elbow and looked down at her. ‘Your bonnet is no doubt with my hat in the mud, those boots are deplorable, your skirts are mired around the hem, your cheeks are pink and I do not blame the country swain for wanting to tumble you in the least.’
He leaned over and slid his hand into her hair, very much the lord of the manor exercising his droit de seigneur, she thought, rather than a farmhand. ‘Now then, my milkmaid…’
He kissed her, laughing. She kissed him back, as well as she could. Will’s weight pressed her down into the straw as his free hand began to creep up her stockinged leg. Julia’s giggles turned into a little gasp of arousal. ‘Will…’
Chapter Thirteen
‘Coom oop, Daisy! Get along there, Molly!’
‘What the hell?’ Will sat up and Julia scrabbled at her rising hem. ‘Oh my lord, the herd is coming in. Up you get.’ He hauled her to her feet and began to bat at her skirts as Julia brushed straw off his coat-tails.
‘Too late…here they come. For goodness’ sake, Will, tuck in your shirt!’
The dairy cows pushed through the wide entrance from the field, bringing the smell of grass and manure as they stared with wide, curious black eyes at the interlopers in their milking parlour. ‘Go on, get along with you.’ Julia waved her hands and they wandered off placidly, each to its own stall, blinking with their preposterously long eyelashes.
‘My lady! Oh, and my lord too. Never realised you was in here.’ Bill Trent, the dairyman, stood in the doorway, staring at them with as much surprise, and rather more speculation, than his cattle.
‘We came up against the quagmire out there, Trent,’ Julia said. ‘And we rather misjudged the distance when we tried to get across it. Have you seen our hats? They must have fallen off when we jumped.’
‘There they be, my lady.’ Bill pointed to the ground behind the straw pile. There was no way the hats would have fallen in that position except from their heads as they sprawled there. On the other hand, she comforted herself as she went to retrieve them, Bill Trent was not perhaps the brightest of the farm workers and might not have the imagination to draw the very obvious conclusion about what the baron and his wife had been doing.
‘Come along, my dear.’ Will sounded so pompous that she could not decide whether he was perishing with embarrassment, fighting the urge to laugh or was unfairly furious with her for landing him in such a position.
‘Of course. Thank you, Trent.’ Julia managed as dignified a nod as she could under the circumstances and let Will usher her out of the milking parlour into the main yard. Fortunately there was no one in sight and Will strode across to the drive with Julia in tow. ‘Oh dear. I am afraid that was not very decorous.’
‘It was, however, exceedingly amusing.’ His voice was shaking with laughter.
‘Will!’
‘And arousing. I assume, my lady, that you will now find it necessary to take all your clothes off in order to remove the lingering traces of the farmyard?’
‘Indeed, my lord. And you will doubtless wish to take off your clothing also to assure yourself that no harm has come to those fine boots. Or your breeches. And I fear your shirt may be torn.’
‘Quite. This is obviously an emergency. Can you walk any faster?’
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‘No, but I can run.’ Julia took to her heels with Will beside her, burst through the front door and was halfway up the stairs before Gatcombe emerged to see what the commotion was.
‘My lady?’ He took one look at Will and effaced himself.
‘We will have scandalised the entire staff at this rate.’ Julia fell panting on to her bed as Will came in behind her and turned the key in the lock.
‘I have no intention of having anyone else as an audience,’ he promised as he threw his coat on to a chair and began to untie his crushed neckcloth. ‘One yokel and one butler is more than enough.’
Julia watched appreciatively as he dragged his shirt over his head, then bent to unlace her boots. ‘I am not a very dignified baroness, am I?’ she asked, studying the muddy, battered footwear. A real lady would not have been seen dead in those boots, or in a cow shed, either. She would probably have no idea how milk was extracted from a cow and would faint at the sight of a dung heap.
Julia chided herself for the negative thoughts. For the first time I feel at ease with him, for the first time this feels like a normal marriage. They had shared secrets and painful memories and, for the first time, Will had been clear about his feelings over the management of the estate.
If only she did not feel so guilty whenever she thought about the secret she was keeping from him. He was coming to trust her and yet what she was hiding from him was awful beyond anything he might imagine.
‘Do you think so?’ Will said, jerking her back to the moment. What had she said? Oh, yes, something about not being dignified. He sat down to pull his own boots off. The muscles in his back rippled as he moved and tugged and Julia felt her mouth go dry. ‘Rolling about in the straw is not dignified, I will agree, but it is perfectly suitable for a milkmaid and her rustic swain. Why do you want to be dignified, anyway? I don’t want you to turn into a sober matron, Julia.’
‘My clothes are not very… I suppose I should dress better.’ Julia pulled up her skirts and untied her garters, conscious of Will’s eyes on her hands.
‘That footwear is suitable for walking around the yards or the fields,’ Will said, standing his boots by the chair and pulling off his own stockings. ‘But do you not want to buy new gowns? Or slippers or hats? Some feminine frivolity?’
‘Frivolity,’ she said blankly, then hauled her concentration back from the contemplation of Will’s bare feet—who would have thought that feet could be so attractive?—and thought about his question. ‘I did not like to spend the money on frivolities. It did not seem right.’
He had saved her life, given her hope. It had seemed immoral to indulge in what seemed like luxury with his money into the bargain. And even the fleeting thought of wandering around a large town, visiting shops amidst a crowd of strangers, brought back that feeling of panic and foreboding. She shrugged. ‘I do not like shopping much.’
‘I cannot believe that I have married the only woman in the country who doesn’t enjoy it.’ Will stood up to unfasten the fall of his breeches. His eyes narrowed and she realised she had run her tongue along her lips in anticipation. ‘We will go shopping together in Aylesbury and then in London and I will teach you to be frivolous.’
‘You want me to buy lots of new clothes?’ She slid off the bed as he came towards her.
‘Oh, yes,’ Will murmured, turning her so he could undo the buttons at the back of her gown. ‘Then I can enjoy taking them off you. Silks…’ he pushed the sensible heavy cotton off her shoulders and it fell to the floor ‘…and satins.’ He began to unlace her stays. Julia shivered despite the warmth. ‘And Indian muslins so fine they are transparent.’ The practical, sensible petticoat joined the gown on the floor. ‘And when I get down to your skin, like this…’ he began to nuzzle along her shoulder and into the crook of her neck ‘…there will be the scent of edible, warm woman, just as there is now, and perhaps just a hint of something exotic and French.’
Julia reached behind her and found the waist of his unfastened breeches and pushed down, her palms running over the smooth skin of his hips as they fell. Against her bare buttocks she felt the heat of his arousal branding her with its length and pressed back with a little wriggle.
Will groaned, pushed her forwards so that her hands were on the bed, and then entered her from behind with one swift stoke. ‘Julia.’
The blatant carnality of his need, her own excitement, the overwhelming sensations the position produced, all sent her tumbling helplessly over the edge with dizzying speed. She heard Will gasp, his hands tightened on her hips and then they fell on the bed in a panting, uncoordinated tangle of limbs.
*
Will rolled on to his back and pulled Julia against his side. It was not easy to find words and he was not certain she wanted any just now as she relaxed confidingly in his arms. Something had shattered the pane of glass that had been between them ever since he came home. Was it that shared laughter, or his realisation of how deeply she had been hurt by the loss of her child? Whatever it was, the results felt good. That hollow well of loneliness inside him that had ached ever since he had been given that death sentence by the doctors was being filled with something warm and soothing. He grinned at the whimsical thought. He had not realised just how much the loss of his siblings, the lies and secrecy, had hurt him until he had told Julia about it.
‘You are quiet,’ Julia said, her breath feathering across his chest.
‘Just thinking.’ He wasn’t ready to share that feeling of loneliness with her yet. It felt like weakness: a man ought to be able to look death squarely in the eye and not fall prey to self-pity.
‘I had never heard you laugh like that before.’ Julia sat up, curled her arms around her legs and rested her chin on her knees.
‘I’m sorry, I hadn’t realised I had been so dour.’ When he looked back he could not recall laughing about anything since he had fallen ill. Things had amused him occasionally. The discovery that he was recovering and would not die within months had filled him with happiness, but not laughter. Not the healing, playful laugher that they had shared that afternoon. Perhaps today he had finally accepted that he had his life back to live.
‘It was the release after the sad things we spoke of earlier, I expect,’ she said. ‘Sometimes laughter brings healing.’
Will sat up too and tipped his head to one side so he could see her face. ‘I am glad you talked about it to me and that you understood about my parents. I am glad that you could trust me. That is important to me.’
‘Trust?’ She slanted him a look.
‘Yes. I suppose it comes from growing up in a household with so little honesty and so many secrets. You must not think it was the fact that you had a lover before that disturbed me when I found out. It was the fact that you had not told me the truth about how you had come to be by the lake that night.’ Julia went very still. ‘That was all it was, wasn’t it? A reluctance to tell a stranger about how you had been led astray and betrayed?’
‘Of course,’ she said and smiled at him, her eyes clear and limpid. So why did a drop of doubt send ripples to mar his certainty that his marriage was, finally, in calm waters?
‘And you have no secrets from me, do you?’ she asked, her voice light as though she was merely teasing him.
‘Of course not.’
‘So you have no regrets that we have consummated the marriage?’ She was staring at her toes now. ‘There are no possible grounds now to set it aside.’
Something knotted inside him. Did he regret it? No. He did not love Julia. But he liked her, he admired her. He certainly desired her. She would make a good mother.
‘Of course I have no regrets,’ he said firmly and saw her shoulders drop a little as though she relaxed with relief. Some demon of impulsiveness made him add, ‘Are you asking if I still love Caroline? Of course I do not. I never did—it was a suitable marriage, that was all. That is over and done with.’
Julia stiffened slightly, or perhaps it was his imagination. ‘I would not dream of pryin
g into your feelings for Miss Fletcher.’
Will opened his mouth and shut it again. I protest too much. I should never have mentioned Caroline.
Julia slid off the bed. ‘Look at the time! I must wash and dress.’ She seemed perfectly composed and yet something in the relaxed atmosphere had changed.
Will gave himself a shake. Imagination and a slightly guilty conscience at his ineptitude just now, that was all it was.
*
‘Is it this morning that you were going to call on Colonel Makepeace about the pointer puppies?’ Julia enquired at breakfast as Will broke the seal on the last of his post. Every month on this day she had been helping Henry with his accounts and it had not occurred to her to write him a note and say that now he should come and ask Will for his counsel instead of her. Henry was not comfortable with his cousin yet and she had no idea how patient Will would be with him.
One more time, she told herself. Henry would turn up this morning as usual, full of his usual mixture of enthusiasms, doubts, hare-brained ideas and, increasingly, thoughtful insights into his responsibilities. Will would be safely out of the way and she could persuade the younger man that her husband would not scorn his efforts to deal with his debts and the needs of his own estate.
Will looked up from the letter. ‘Yes, it is. Do you want to come along? Or was there something you need me to do?’
‘Oh, no, I was just wondering.’ She did not like prevaricating, but if he did not know she was still helping Henry he could not tell her to stop. Which was a very dubious argument, she knew.
*
An hour later she was profoundly grateful Will had gone out. Henry was pale, distracted and seemed almost on the verge of despair, however hard he tried to cover it up.
Eventually Julia gave up on the accounts, put down her pen and demanded, ‘Henry, what on earth is the matter with you?’
For a moment she thought he would deny anything was wrong, or refuse to answer her, but he slammed the ledger closed and said, ‘It’s Mama. She is matchmaking again, only this time she’s invited Mary…this young lady and her mother to stay. She’s never done that before and it is so marked an attention when there are no other guests that I know they will be expecting a declaration from me!’