by Alina Adams
Grabbing Jamie's arm, Julia asked excitedly, "Did you hear that? The servant, he spoke English. And if the footman speaks English, then perhaps the couple he works for, the one boarding that vessel over there, perhaps they are English as well."
Julia pointed to the left, and towards a yacht bobbing among the surf beside an anchored freighter. The grandeur of the furniture on deck, and the presence of at least three smartly dressed servants, suggested that this vessel was, more likely than not, of the pleasure cruise, rather than service, variety.
"There is our transportation home," Julia told Jamie.
"Do you propose that we stow away in the cargo hold?"
"No, Mr. Lowell. I propose that we acquire ourselves an invitation to go sailing."
She would show him.
Julia would show Jamie he wasn't the only one capable of playing a part when in pursuit of a goal. All she needed to do was strike up a conversation with the English couple on board the yacht, and, in a manner both subtle and simultaneously forceful, somehow manage to plant in their heads the idea to invite Julia and her entourage on board.
It was a simple plan, and, although Julia suspected that Jamie might be the better scoundrel for the job, she was nevertheless determined to carry it out herself. As a matter of principle.
Leaving Jamie with Alexia, Julia fixed up her hair the best she could, administering pins into whichever curl happened to feel loose, without the aid of a mirror. Her clothes, she realized were another story. They were beyond hope, especially the hem of Julia's dress. Over the past twenty-four hours, its colors had changed from white to gray to dark gray to undeniably filthy. Her shoes were covered with dried sewage that left streaks upon the previously gleaming leather. She looked less like the niece of Collin Highsmith, duke of Alamain, and more like some wench he would never dare hire even to sweep his fireplace. Would the English couple even believe her claim?
Julia hesitated. Never before had she needed to prove her status to anyone, and she hadn't given much thought to the accoutrements that went into creating a credible picture. People accepted that Julia were of the class that she was, because of the many trappings that went with it. The fine clothes, the servants, the manner of carrying herself as if everyone else had best scurry out of the way. Stripped of these identifying marks, Julia was dependent completely on what lay within for her survival.
She supposed it would have to suffice. Jamie had taught Julia enough about best making do with whatever assets you possessed at the moment. In fact, if Julia recalled correctly, another of Jamie's lessons had covered the turning of what on the surface seemed like a disadvantage, into an advantage.
Certainly that was exactly the track he'd taken when they were spotted kissing at the ball. And with the marquis of Martyn.
And with her.
If he could do it, well then, so could she. Julia would show Jamie she knew how to turn a potential disaster into victory.
Disposing of her plan of only a moment earlier, Julia bent over, shaking all the pins out of her hair in an attempt to look more disheveled. She rubbed some of the mud from her shoes off with two fingers, then, distastefully, rubbed it on her face.
Then, Julia turned and ran towards the yacht.
Screaming.
It was a half an hour before Julia returned for Jamie and Alexia. Both sat on an empty crate, Jamie patiently teaching the child a most intricate version of cat's cradle. Seeing the rope in his hands, Julia hesitated, remembering Jamie's magic tricks of a few days past. If Jamie recalled the evening as well, he gave no visible indication.
Instead, when he looked up and saw Julia, Jamie's eyes grew large and he asked, "What in blazes happened to you? You look like you've been dragged for an acre by a colt in need of breaking."
"Close," she said. "My husband, child, and I were robbed on our way to port by a passel of French thieves who made off with our every belonging, franc, and ferry ticket."
"You don't say, m'lady?"
Julia knew she hadn't married a fool. It didn't take more than those words for Jamie to understand exactly what she was trying to say to him.
"And then, pray tell, what happened?"
"Our child went into shock, and has yet to say a word, while I fell into such a panic that I was reduced to running along the water's edge, calling desperately for someone who spoke English to pray help me. I, you see, do not speak a word of French."
"I see. Not a word."
"And it wasn't easy. I daresay I must have run blind and hysterical past their blasted yacht at least three times before the master and mistress noticed me, and inquired what the matter was."
On board the pompously dubbed Ship Perfection, everyone proved very sympathetic to poor Julia and Jamie's plight.
Maids and footmen were dispatched to draw them baths and launder their clothes, and, once Jamie and Julia cleaned up, the yacht's proprietor treated both to an extensive discourse on the French people's inadequate police force, and on the general inferiority of all things French to all things English. Jamie, in particular, felt hard pressed to contain his merriment when the gentleman spent a good five and twenty minutes explaining how, back home in London, no criminal ever went unpunished for his crimes.
By the time the topic of how terribly fortunate Julia and Jamie had been to find a single civilized English couple among all those dreadful French types at the docks was stated and confirmed and discussed to death for possibly the fifth time that evening, Julia could barely keep her eyes open.
She prepared to excuse herself at the same instant that Jamie rose from his chair and suggested that they call it a night, seeing as how the yacht was due to dock in England early the next morning.
After another round of profuse thanks for their gracious life-saving hospitality, Jamie and Julia bade their hosts a grateful good-night, and escaped below deck.
As they walked toward the cabin, Julia teasingly asked Jamie, "What did you think of my performance?"
He shrugged, almost as if he knew how much his approval of her mattered to Julia, and was deliberately withholding it.
She pressed on, explaining, "I turned a disadvantage into an advantage. I knew I looked too ragged to be taken for a lady, so I made myself appear worse, and passed off as a lady in distress."
He didn't reply, and, instead, indicated their cabin door. "You told our benefactors that we were married, did you not?"
"I did."
"Then how do you propose to explain our needing to slumber in separate rooms?"
There was no logical way to explain it, and Jamie knew that as well as Julia. They would simply have to make the best of their circumstances. Unfortunately, Julia's feelings lay in such a tangle at the present moment that she could no longer decide just what "the best" might be.
Alexia already lay sleeping on a cot beside the larger bed. She clutched her doll tightly, and periodically whimpered in her sleep. One side of the pillow was wet with tears.
Kneeling briefly beside the little girl, and straightening her blankets, Julia whispered, "She is suffering so much. I am beginning to wonder whether we did the right thing."
"It is what Miriam wanted."
"I know. My mother died when I was about her age. I still miss her," Julia confessed.
Behind her, Jamie stripped blankets off the bed. She heard the rhythmic snap of the sheets, she felt the cooling breeze they stirred up caress the damp warmth of her back, making her shiver, as she wondered what Jamie's next move might be. She remembered the gentle way he'd carried her upstairs to the inn, and the way his hands had felt as he reached to remove her shoes. The memory of it made Julia wonder longingly what it might be like to lie beside him, to feel the heat of those hands all over her body.
She turned to Jamie, ready to tell him . . .
Ready to tell him what? Julia had not the faintest idea what she wanted to say. It didn't matter that her head and heart were so filled with emotions that she felt ready to burst at any moment. No words were forthcoming.
Thinking that maybe actions should speak louder than any meaningless sounds, Julia rose to approach Jamie, hoping that, by the time she reached him, she would be able to at least show him all those things she hadn't the language to say.
Back turned to her, Jamie continued neatly folding the bedspread, halving and quartering it with needle precision. Swallowing her pride and her modesty and every other virtue Salome had once deemed indispensable, Julia gathered instead her courage and, tentatively, rested her palm on Jamie's shoulder.
He stopped folding, but did not turn around.
"Jamie?" Julia's voice sounded strange even to her own ears. The remains of her question dried and crumbled like a rose pressed inside a dance card. But Julia already knew that it weren't her question that was important, but Jamie's answer.
He straightened up. The muscles in back of his neck stood tense and hard, forming the slightest of hollows pointing up towards his hair line.
She heard him inhale, licking both lips and swallowing hard, and coughing to clear his throat before speaking.
Julia's entire body tensed, so poised to hear how he might answer that, at the first sound of Jamie's voice, Julia shuddered, as if a gunshot had unexpectedly torn through the silence.
Jamie pretended not to notice. Voice neutral, he thrust the pillow and blanket he was holding into Julia's arms and announced, "You and Alexia can share the bed. I'll take the cot."
It seemed to Julia that Jamie fell asleep the instant that his head hit the pillow. He lay on the cot, one arm under his ear, the other wrapping the blanket around his shoulders. His calm, even breathing filled the room.
Hoping that it might put her to sleep as well, Julia attempted to match her breathing motions to his, but that only succeeded in making her more aware of his presence than ever.
Which was hardly what Julia had in mind.
She told herself that her inability to drift away stemmed from Alexia's tossing and turning in the bed beside her. But such lies no longer convinced Julia in the least. The reason she could not sleep was because she still felt the harsh sting of Jamie's pointed rejection when he shoved the bed linens between them, then retired without so much as a courteous good-night.
A few weeks back, Julia might have felt comfortable with attributing such a slight to bad manners on his part. But now that she knew just how much of a gentleman Jamie could be when he put his mind to it, she was forced to think of his actions as nothing less than a deliberate insult.
Surely he could not still be angry with Julia about her behavior at the inn? Maybe he was angry with her for neglecting to tell him about the missing tickets. Or for her lying to him. Or for her patronizing him. Or for her calling him uncivilized.
Julia sighed so hard that her bangs fluttered above her forehead. He certainly did possess quite a tidy little list of grievances against her, didn't he?
Then how to explain Jamie's continuing to assist Julia in her scheme? If he really, truly despised her, then Jamie would have fled at the earliest opportunity.
Wouldn't he?
Clearly the fact that he were still here meant something.
Didn't it?
The only thing it meant was that Jamie were a man of his word. Or, in more base terms, he was a man determined to fulfill his duties to the end, if only to collect on the money promised to him.
Conceding that, tonight at least, sleep was most definitely out of the question for her, Julia stealthily rose from her bed, and crept to crouch beside Jamie. She watched the taut muscles in his back contract with each breath, and the way he ever so slightly puffed his cheeks upon exhaling.
To Julia, the act of observing someone while he slept had always seemed dreadfully intimate, if only because the poor targets had no idea that they were being watched. Yet, it gave her the same thrill as eavesdropping. Jamie's eyelashes cast dancing shadows upon his cheeks. The image reminded Julia of Gavin, and the way he'd looked the night of the ball, walking in her garden. And it reminded her that, all during the course of their journey, she still had yet to think of Lord Neff even once.
Tentatively, Julia reached out her hand to touch Jamie's hair, gently patting the slight wave at the very base of his neck, and marveling at how fine and thick it was. When he didn't respond to the intrusion, Julia grew braver, softly brushing her fingers along his jawbone. She felt the faint stubble of tomorrow's beard. Because of Julia's follies, Jamie hadn't shaved in over a day. It felt rather pleasant. Almost as if the tiny red and gold whiskers snatching at her fingertips were an invitation for Julia to continue with her explorations.
Jamie stirred, sleepily slapping at his face with one hand. Julia barely had the chance to snatch her arm away. Her heart beat in double-time. What if Jamie had caught her? How would Julia have explained her behavior then?
Jamie rolled over onto his other side, facing Julia, but he did not open his eyes. She knew that she should hustle back towards the bed, pull the covers over her head, and pretend to be sleeping in case he suddenly awakened. But Julia felt loathe to do so. He looked so sweet when asleep. So innocent. Almost like the boy Jamie must have been at one time, before life took its first bite out of his soul.
Knowing that what she was doing reached the supreme heights of giddiness, but yet unable to stop herself, Julia leaned forward until her face were almost touching Jamie's, and, quickly, lest she change her mind, kissed him ever so lightly on the forehead.
She then flew back toward her bed and under the blankets, as if the devil himself were in broiling pursuit.
Despite her conviction that she would never be able to fall asleep with Jamie so delectably close by, exhaustion at last caught the better of Julia, and she did doze off. Only to awaken to the sounds of Alexia's terrified, muffled screams.
She had barely rubbed the sleep out of her eyes and turned towards the child, when Jamie was by the bed, sweeping Alexia into his embrace and soothingly rocking her in his arms.
He wore a nightshirt loaned to him by their host, and its smaller size stretched to once again emphasize Jamie's solid, muscular chest. Pink sleep marks danced up one side of his face, giving Jamie the sweetness of a newborn baby.
Jamie sat on the edge of the bed, barely a foot away from Julia. She could feel the heat emanating from his body, and inhale the unfamiliar, masculine, nighttime smell. Julia's heart made a sensational leap into the pit of her stomach at the thought of Jamie's sitting so close by her while she wore no more than a silk dressing gown.
Jamie kissed the top of Alexia's head, then began to sing some silly, nursery rhyme that Julia did not recognize, but one that had Alexia giggling within minutes.
When it appeared that the child had calmed down a bit, Jamie started Alexia on making a list of all the new things they'd seen that she could write to her mother about once they got on shore.
As effective as counting sheep, the activity put Alexia to sleep within fifteen minutes.
Reluctant to wake her, Jamie shook his head at Julia's suggestion that it was probably safe for him to return to his bed now, and only leaned against the headboard, settling Alexia more comfortably into his lap. He winced as the board's carvings, dug into the skin of his back.
Wanting to help, Julia pulled his blanket off the cot and carefully slipped it around Jamie's shoulders, hoping to ease some of the discomfort. He smiled gratefully.
Buoyed by his friendly reaction, Julia awkwardly crawled on top of the covers and into the bed beside him, resting one hand soothingly upon Alexia's head, and letting the other fall against Jamie's arm. He didn't pull away or comment.
For close to an hour, they sat shoulder to shoulder, neither moving nor speaking.
Then, moving so slowly as to make her movements nearly imperceptible, Julia reached for Jamie's free hand, sliding it gently into her own.
He turned to look at her, eyes glowing in the darkness, reminding Julia of that night on the balcony, when she had thought him to possess some sort of magical power over her.
It were the same no
w. Julia could neither recognize the expression in his eyes, nor pull away from it. Julia's actions were no longer under her control, and she could truly, freely say that she would have had it no other way.
Silently, Jamie raised their intertwined hands to his lips, softly kissing each of Julia's fingertips in turn.
She shivered, exhaling in a series of brief nervous gasps as if calming after a crying jag.
"Good-night, Mrs. Lowell," Jamie said softly, moving his arm so as to encompass Julia as well as Alexia in his embrace, and gesturing for her to lay her head on his shoulder.
Where they stayed for the rest of the night, and well into the next morning.
18
Compared to what went before it, the remainder of their journey towards home proved disappointingly uneventful.
Julia and Jamie bade their hosts good-bye at the docks, and, once again, showered them with thanks. Although both stopped short of an invitation for a reciprocal visit. Considering how tentative their marital state was, neither Jamie nor Julia wished to risk the awkwardness of having to explain why the seemingly loving couple were no longer together.
Still penniless, but at least now on home soil, Jamie and Julia worked together to convince a livery stable owner to rent them a carriage with no money in advance. They promised that he and the driver would receive twice their standard fee once Julia returned home, and the combination of greed and Julia's imperious accent helped win the fellow over to their way of thinking.
On their ride to the house, Alexia, sitting comfortably between Jamie and Julia, grew more animated, surveying the English countryside with genuine interest, and asking questions about the homes and sights they passed on their way.
She even asked if she might call Mr. Lowell, Uncle Jamie.
"Well," he looked at Julia, feeling as sincerely curious as Alexia. "May she?"
Julia did not know how to respond to his question. To stall, she said, "Actually, Mr. Lowell is more your cousin, your cousin by marriage, than he is your uncle, Alexia."
"Does that matter very much? Maman instructed me to call you Aunt Julia. Because you are older."