All Things Beautiful

by Cathy Maxwell

  “Come, Julia. You want to talk. We’ll talk.”

  Fingering the shawl’s fringe, she searched her mind for a way to begin. Finally she squeezed her hands tightly in her lap, forcing them to be still. “I heard some men talking tonight, Brader.” She raised her head to look him in the eye. “About me.”

  Brader stood abruptly and moved a few steps away as if to remove himself physically from her presence. “I don’t think we need go into this conversation further.”

  “Brader, I want to talk about it.”

  “If one of my guests offered insult, I will discuss the matter in the morning.”

  “Brader, it is not the men I wish to discuss. I want—”

  “In the morning, Julia.”

  “No, now.”

  “We have nothing to discuss.”

  Julia rose. “Yes, we do! If what you have heard about me is only one tenth of what I heard tonight in the hallway, we have a great deal to discuss. If we are to deal with each other for the rest of our lives, we need to discuss this now.” Surprised by her vehemence, she sank into her chair, half turned from him, and stared at her hands. Gaining control of herself, she lifted the shawl back up around her shoulders and added, “Please.”

  She wasn’t sure he would honor her request. However, a moment later, he threw himself in his chair like a recalcitrant schoolboy before the headmaster.

  Julia could not bring herself to look at him as she started, her voice low. “The men in the hall—their names are not important for I am not angry with them, truly I’m not, Brader.” Julia stopped, took a deep breath and continued. “One said to the other that I stand accused of entertaining men—in the nude.”

  Her head came up and she held her gaze steady, meeting his eyes as she spoke. It was important for him to know she did not lie. “That is false. I have never done such a thing in my life, nor would I ever consider it.”

  The flickering fire and lamplight reflected in his eyes. His jaw tensed. Julia would have given her soul to know what thoughts ran through his head.

  She continued. “What is true is that I eloped with a cavalry officer. His name was Lawrence Alcorn, and I…” The words became hard to say; she forced herself to finish. “I loved him very much.”

  Her confession hung in the air between them, while memories flooded Julia’s mind. She pushed them aside, breaking eye contact with Brader. The memories only brought pain, more pain than the truth.

  “He did not love me.”

  Julia did not go on but sat staring at the fire in silence. Images, snatches of conversation, savored moments passed before her mind’s eye. Memories….

  His voice, sounding like a whisper from the grave, broke the silence. “There was a bet on the books at White’s of one hundred pounds sterling to the man who could topple Julia Markham, the icy Elegant Julia. You knew of it?”

  A dark coldness filled her mind. Fear. Julia could not bring herself to look at him, nor could she lie. She nodded her head: yes.

  “How many men did your brothers fleece with their counterfeit wager, Julia? How many men lost their hearts to you, only to have you throw them back in their faces and laugh, once the bet was won? How much money did the Markhams make?”

  “You know.”

  “Aye, I know.”

  Julia felt hollow inside. “I didn’t know what my brothers were doing at first. You must believe—”

  “But once you found out about their deception, you did not stop them.”

  “We needed the money—” Julia shook her head, a denial of her own words. She’d promised herself not to lie again, never again. “No.”

  “But then a group at White’s took the wager up in earnest and backed a handsome dashing hussar. My reports state he was the perfect man to break a girl’s heart.” He added coldly, “As amoral and selfish as the Markhams.”

  A harsh indictment, delivered in his baritone. No stronger words had ever been uttered against her, and no truer ones described Lawrence. Julia stood, holding the shawl in place with one hand at her chest.

  Her voice shaking with emotion, she stated, “I have never been naked in a roomful of men and I never entertained them.” She tossed her hair back with a proud, defiant lift of her chin. “Have your reports told you that?”

  Brader gave a half laugh. He leaned forward. “You spent the night in the arms of a man you believed to be your betrothed. You were in a state of—ah—undress. Did my correspondents mislead me?”

  Julia didn’t answer but held herself as still as a stone statue, her mind’s eye focused on events years ago.

  Brader finished brutally, apparently tired of the game. “A group of men from White’s burst into the room and discovered the couple. The majority of the men were deep in their cups. No two stories match up, and yet all stories place you in a”—he paused for the proper choice of word—“compromising situation.”

  “It was nothing more than a lark for them.”

  “Yes.”

  She hadn’t expected his agreement. She looked at him sharply but could see no mockery in his eyes. Her muscles ached from standing so stiffly, and yet she couldn’t relax. Nor could she stop herself from telling her story. How she wished she could deny everything and throw it back in his face.

  “Lawrence and I were eloping. He had no money. His family was good, but as the sixth son of an earl he would have had to make his own way in the world.” She could not stop the smile, remembering. “Your report was correct. Lawrence was a beautiful man, the handsome hero of Greek myth arriving to save my honor.” Her voice dropped so low she was almost talking to herself. “And I had a need to be saved. He had such wit and loved to laugh. Something about Lawrence defied convention.” She could still hear his laughter, hear his words. His betrayal. A deep coldness stole around her heart.

  Julia relaxed and sank into her chair across from Brader but did not look at him. She stroked the shawl’s fringe.

  “I knew what my brothers were doing. It seemed harmless enough.” She shot Brader an angry look. “It is easy for you to judge, but perhaps if you’d had parents like ours, you too might be like my brothers.”

  “Even if I’d had the chance to do nothing with my life, I doubt that I would use Harry as a role model.”

  She answered him with a bitter smile. “Well, many of the men who accepted my brothers’ wager and lost were much like Harry, although they had money of their own to put up. Their vanity told them I would be an easy conquest. What is it with men? They believe that money in funds and a title are enough for a woman.”

  Brader gave a sharp bark of laughter. “Wasn’t that what you were looking for?”

  Angrily, she said, “My father. It was what my father wanted. What I wanted was for someone to care for me. Me. Not the face or the body.”

  Tears threatened, but Julia blinked them back. She’d already disgraced herself enough in front of this tradesman. She steeled herself against emotion and continued in a monotone.

  “I thought Lawrence loved me. He had nothing; I had nothing. There were no advantages to our marriage. You may think what you will of me, but when he asked me to marry him—”

  “He asked you to run away with him.”

  Julia bit back a sharp retort. “He asked me to elope with him.”

  “Run away,” Brader confirmed.

  “There was no time to gain a license before he left to join his regiment on the Peninsula.”

  Brader’s face expressed his disbelief.

  Julia’s temper burst into flames, suddenly aware that Brader was toying with her. She jumped to her feet, leaving the shawl, forgotten, in the chair.

  “Very well! I believed we were heading to Scotland. Lawrence planned to rendezvous with his accomplices at an inn off the Post Road to win his bet.” She lifted her chin. “And it’s true I spent the night in his arms, but I loved him. I had no idea it was all a hoax.”

  Julia crossed away from him toward the darkness of a window. Her mind relived that night, all the sweet coaxing wor
ds Lawrence had used, until she’d reluctantly consented to spend the night lying beside him in the cushioned down of the bed, and then the crashing in of the door during the wee early hours of the morning, the men pouring in to stare and laugh at her. Many of the men, she knew. All were members of her class. The majority had proposed to her at one time or the other and had been rejected. They laughed at her in her thin chemise in front of them. Julia winced, the sound of their raucous drunken voices loud and clear in her ears as if it were all happening this very moment.

  “Julia?”

  She turned toward him, standing by his chair. Thankfully, she was dry eyed. She would not cry for Lawrence, not after what he did to her. “Have you ever been betrayed, Brader? I can tell you, no knife cuts sharper than betrayal at the hands of one you love. And I loved him.”

  “Did you?”

  Fire flashed from her eyes. How dare he doubt her? “Yes,” she hissed.

  Brader walked toward her, his step light and slightly menacing. “Did you love him? He died three weeks later.”

  Julia gasped, suddenly frightened of what he was going to say. How did he know all these things?

  Turning, she crossed toward the door but Brader’s voice followed her, slicing the air between them.

  “Did you mourn?”

  Julia stopped.

  Lawrence had caught a fever and died without ever seeing the Iberian coast. Geoffrey had damned the bad luck that he and Harry had paid up the bet before Lawrence left England.

  “Did you mourn, Julia?” Brader repeated.

  Julia spun on her heel and confronted her tormentor. “No,” she ground out. “I didn’t mourn. He used me, and when I heard word of his death I felt released, free of him and of all his sort who’d used me over and over.”

  “Used you?” Brader slowly walked toward her, each step measured and deliberate. “How can a man use a woman as cold and calculating as Julia Markham?” He stopped before her, his eyes dark with anger, an anger she didn’t understand.

  “I don’t understand what you mean.”

  “It was all a game to you. No woman could entertain the number of marriage proposals presented to Lady Julia Markham without its being a game. Even the wager at White’s. All a game. So you fell in love and were burned.” Brader shrugged his shoulders. “I pity the man who falls in love with you. Even a man you say you loved, a man who shared your bed, died without a tear from you.”

  “He used me.”

  “Men and women are used every day in the world out there, Julia. What separates truth and honor from lies and deceit is the depth of our convictions. You said you loved this hussar and yet, upon his death, you gave not one thought to him except satisfaction that he was gone from your life. That he’d suffered for betraying you.”

  The desire to slap him flared through her. Instead, she whirled on one foot to leave his room. She’d been a fool to think she could find understanding in Brader Wolf.

  His strong, firm grasp caught her before she could take a step. Pulling her toward him, he captured her body in his arms and held her tightly against the hard masculine contours of his own.

  “And what about me, Julia? Will you cry when I am gone?” His voice mocked her, but the righteous anger burning in his eyes had been replaced with the fire of another emotion. “You come in my room, an Eve offering the apple to Adam, and for what? You don’t even see me as a man, do you? I’m just an end to whatever goals you have in that scheming aristocrat’s mind of yours.”

  Brader’s hold on her tightened; his large hands slid down her back, cupping her buttocks. Julia’s body burned as if he touched her bare flesh. She could not touch him, afraid of what would happen if her hands made contact with his bare skin.

  “What do you and your brothers have brewing for me, hmm? You’d like to have me besotted with you. Is that what they told you to do? And this nonsense about wanting my children; is it so you can claim my fortune after I’m gone?”

  His hot breath brushed her cheek. Julia attempted to push away from him, but her movements only placed her in a more compromising position, surrounded by his body heat and warm masculine scent. He pulled her closer, their bodies fitting together at every juncture. He wanted her. Even though he denied her with his words, his body told her something else. She had no time to feel triumph before his head lowered, his lips sealing hers in a hungry, bruising kiss.

  Julia had no will to fight him. Again and again, he drank her soul though the headiness of his kisses. She leaned against him, supporting herself against his body.

  He could take her now and she’d not say him nay. No matter what his opinion of her, she wanted him. She reached up to wrap her arms around him, to feel the warm, pulsating smoothness of his skin and pull him closer—

  Cool air whipped between them. Dazed, Julia opened her eyes to look confused into the dark, smoldering gaze of her husband. Horror filled her as she realized she’d reacted exactly as he’d expected.

  Julia lifted her hand and deliberately wiped his kiss from her mouth.

  Brader reacted as if she’d struck him. His jaw tensed, his eyes glowed dangerously, but his words were filled with bitterness. “Leave me, Julia. Get out of my life. I have Kimberwood. You have all the money you will ever need. Go work your wiles on a less gullible man, one of your own kind. But do not ever let me catch you involved in another one of your brothers’ deceptions.”

  “You’re wrong about me, Brader. I am not the wicked villainess you think me.”

  Brader’s eyes expressed his disbelief. He gave a short, mocking bow. “As you would have it, madam.”

  She wanted to fly at him with her nails stretched out and claw the mockery off his face. Instead, she mustered what remained of her dignity. “Is it just me you despise or my whole class?” Without waiting for his response, Julia opened the door and slammed it behind her with all her strength.

  But once inside her bedroom, she collapsed, realizing how much ground she’d lost with him. Brader spoke nothing but the truth.

  Emma and Chester thought she’d attempted to take her life in grief over the death of Lawrence. But Brader was right. Lawrence’s betrayal had devastated her pride, but her heart remained untouched.

  Her pride demanded she attempt suicide. Pride and the loss of hope that her life would ever amount to anything but the swindles and escapades of her brothers.

  Every accusation Brader made against her family was true.

  The Beals, and many of the tenants at Danescourt, helped her pick up the pieces of her selfish life. Over the past three years, Julia had discovered in herself strength and a hungry desire for more than what she’d learned from her family.

  She wanted love, unquestioning love, that didn’t barter itself or hold her guilty for her past. A child would give her that love. In return, she would protect her child from all the hurt and lies she’d suffered, just as Emma and Chester had protected her.

  She rose and began pacing the bedroom. The first step was to have a child from her legal husband, Brader Wolf.

  Julia kicked a small footstool out of the way of her furious pacing. Oh! He’d love to hurl more accusations at her head if she bore another man’s child. Brader Wolf wasn’t bound by the moral code of polite society. He’d divorce her.

  She’d never let him have the opportunity to rid himself of her! Once he fathered her child, she’d set up her own house. She’d epitomize respectability. She’d show him he was wrong about her.

  Of course, she was going to have to try something drastically different than she had so far to induce Brader to bed her. Julia frowned. She’d never experienced difficulty in attracting men, from crown prince to stable hand. Now she was chasing a man, and he resisted her!

  A frisson of emotion, suspiciously like jealousy, ran through her as she remembered Lord Barham’s description of Brader’s mistress. Or one of them!

  Tomorrow. Tomorrow, she’d start to teach Brader Wolf a lesson. So far, her plans had failed. Her mind thoughtful, she climbed into bed. Br
ader obviously needed more inducement than a pretty face or a low-cut dress.

  Someday, Brader Wolf would regret all the insults he’d paid her tonight. With that promise, Julia fell into an exhausted sleep.

  The next morning she woke fresh and renewed. Hearing the sound of workmen hammering, Julia decided Brader was a hard taskmaster. Dressed in a tastefully sophisticated day dress, she gave her reflection in the mirror a nod of approval before leaving her room, ready to conquer her husband.

  Her plans came to an abrupt halt by the breakfast room door. There, the dour-faced Fisher informed her that the Master and Mr. Hardwell had returned to London. The Master, Fisher said in his dull monotone, had pressing business to attend to and could not say when he’d return. Lord Barham and the other guests were in the breakfast room.

  Julia didn’t waste her anger on Fisher. Nor did she pause to say good-bye to their guests before charging back to her room to change into a pair of sturdy walking shoes and the old green wool she’d worn as a wedding dress. Receiving directions from Fisher, she set out the door on foot, her legs covering the cold ground rapidly.

  She needed the fresh, crisp country air. She needed to see friends. She needed a place to rant and rave at Brader Wolf. The man had skillfully managed to avoid her once again.

  Why did he always run away when she was committed to honoring their marriage?

  Julia stopped dead in her tracks, surprised at her sudden insight. Could it be Brader was running from her?

  She continued her walk at a slower, thoughtful pace, until she came upon the small cottage Brader had turned over to Emma and Chester. Julia could imagine how Emma would have the cottage looking come spring, surrounded with flowers and warmed by the love the old couple held for each other. Julia felt a pang of jealousy.

  Emma’s face came alive with joy at seeing Julia. “We’ve been waiting for you. We had no idea when to expect you. My lady, we can never thank you enough for all you’ve done for us.”

  Emma’s voice choked with emotion, but she hid her emotion behind her bluster.