Her fork froze in midair. “No, I didn’t know.”
“When I was younger, I had a dream of coming back to Kimberwood, throwing out your grandparents, and putting my mother in her rightful place. I wanted to avenge an injustice. Now, I’m here.”
Suddenly, Julia wasn’t hungry. She took a sip of wine.
Brader saw her set her fork down. He frowned. “Years ago I felt that way. Those are not my sentiments today.”
“What are your sentiments now?”
Brader considered her question seriously. Finally he looked up. “I don’t know. I want Mother happy. As for a title?” He shrugged his shoulders. “It would be good business, but as far as personal satisfaction, I’m beyond that stage. I accept myself for what I am and not what others make of me.” He lifted a brow. “How about you? Would it matter to you if I were titled?”
Julia didn’t even ponder the question. “No.”
Brader watched her intently. “No? I’m surprised you didn’t give the question more thought.”
Julia curved her lips into the smile of the cynic. “I thought it over years ago, when I made the decision to elope. And I considered it again before we married. The answer is no. My ambitions don’t lie in a title for my husband.”
Lifting his wineglass, Brader paid her a mock salute. “Ah, yes, I forgot. My lady wants a babe.”
Keep your temper, she warned herself. His light-hearted treatment of a subject dear to her irritated her, but she refused to show anger. Not tonight. Too much rode on her ability to take Brader to her bed.
“There is nothing wrong with wanting a child.” Julia took a sip—swig?—of wine before continuing, giving careful thought to her words. “But I also want to please you, even possibly manage a true marriage between us. I didn’t mean to say what I said in anger this afternoon. I was worried about Nan—” She didn’t finish the sentence, afraid to voice her fears.
“Julia—”
But Julia barged on. “And if I’ve given you the impression that I have looked down my nose at you—well”—Julia found she needed another drink of wine before sighing and continuing in one breath—“well, it’s true, sometimes I have.”
She couldn’t meet his eyes any longer. In fact, she wished he’d look anywhere with that direct stare of his but at her. Pushing the food around her plate with disinterest, she continued.
“Sometimes I’m jealous. You’ve done more with your life than I have with mine. With a baby, I have a chance to start over.”
“Over? People don’t just start their lives over.”
“I have.” She put down her fork. “I know what you think, Brader, and based upon the information you’ve collected about me, I don’t blame you. But I am a different person now than I was at twenty.” She brushed the faint scar on her wrist with the pad of the thumb on her other hand, surprised at her sudden candor.
Brader stared at her a moment, the look in his eye evaluating. Julia picked up the fork and speared a piece of meat with vigor, forcing herself to eat it. Finally, she continued.
“My parents were never attentive to any of their children. We were all left to grow up on our own without much guidance. Harry is the brother closest to my age, and he’s five years older. I barely knew Geoffrey, growing up.”
“The one who is about to make me an uncle?”
Julia’s eyes twinkled in spite of her seriousness. “As a child, I thought him as old as my father. And I rarely saw my parents at all.” She added in a whisper, “You are fortunate you had Nan for a mother.”
“Yes, I am. She never let me feel ashamed.” He refilled her wineglass.
“What have you to be ashamed of?”
Brader shook his head, refusing to be drawn into confidences, his smile rueful. “Nothing, now. Money erases all shame.”
“Is that why money means so much to you?”
Brader’s eyes flashed, challenging her. “And it means nothing to you?”
Thoughtful, Julia leaned over the table and traced the rim of her wineglass with one finger. “I have just spent three years with barely a shilling to my name. Yes, money means something to me, but not everything.”
“Then you’ve never been hungry,” Brader responded, his tone hinting superiority.
She lifted her wineglass in a mock salute. “Yes. I have,” she stated flatly.
He backed down. “I believe you mean that.”
Julia almost shot back, I do, when she remembered her goal tonight was not to challenge Brader but to charm him. At one time in her life, she would never have voiced a strong opinion or challenged a man directly. How did Brader bring out the worst in her? Or had she changed so much she had lost her skill at light flirtation?
Reminding herself to keep the conversation focused on Brader, she took another sip of wine and asked, “How did you make your money?”
Finished with his meal, Brader pushed back his plate, leaned back, and looked at her lazily before answering. “I gambled.”
Julia glanced up sharply.
He explained. “Every man of business is a gambler, but we don’t gamble on cards or horses. I gamble on myself. My first opportunity came when Elias Rosen let me run errands for his solicitor’s firm. I did it well. Every day, I showed up at the front door of his office off High Street before Elias arrived, hoping he’d give me work.”
Julia raised a skeptical eyebrow. “Brader, you didn’t build a fortune running errands.”
He smiled. “No, I built it by always looking for opportunity. The clerks in Elias’s office dressed better than I did and had better homes for their families. Mother insisted on teaching me to read, and by the time I met Elias I had as much ability as any of the scrawny clerks who worked for him. Besides, I held no desire to keep doing manual labor or boxing in the ring to earn my living.”
“You were a pugilist?”
Brader fingered the bump in his nose. “The lad that gave me this one caught me off guard, but by the time I finished with him, he wished he’d never heard my name.”
Stunned, Julia asked, “Isn’t boxing little more than a public brawl? Why would any man subject himself to a beating?”
Brader laughed. “Money. I made one guinea a round pretending to be a country bumpkin in the crowd ready to challenge the champ. The promoter would call to the crowd for challengers, and I’d step up to the ring. I was always supposed to lose, but sometimes I would get carried away. When that lad broke my nose, I broke his. I didn’t get paid that day.”
Fascinated, Julia burst out with a laugh. “A guinea a round!”
Brader nodded. “It was good money for doing nothing more than eating fist meat. Of course, every once in a while I had to take a brain-addling blow, but other than a bumpy nose I managed to come out of it all right.”
His words caught Julia in mid-sip of her wine. She started choking. Brader reached over, patting her on the back. When she could catch her breath, she choked out, “What does that mean, ‘eating fist meat’?”
Brader’s eyes danced. “It means the lad was supposed to give me five to—I mean, hit me in the mouth or the fleshy side of my cheek. I would fake a dive and he’d win the match.”
“Do I understand you correctly? Are you saying those pugilist matches my brothers bet so avidly on are staged?”
“Not all of them, perhaps not the big matches with the well-known names. But the market-day matches and most of the regular events are,” Brader answered, pouring more wine in both their glasses. “The manager liked me because of my size. I’d drive up the betting on the gamblers who liked to play the long odds.”
Brader’s hand moved from her back to her arm. He stroked his hand up and down her arm several times while he continued.
“I made well more than a guinea a round for the sponsors.” He smiled. “That is, until I broke that fighter’s nose. Put an end to my career working the fancy.”
At the question in Julia’s eyes, he explained, “Boxing. Can’t talk.” He started to pull his hand away.
“No, don’t,” Julia said without thinking. “It feels good.”
Brader raised a suspicious eyebrow. “How many glasses of wine have you had?” he asked, but he didn’t move his hand.
For a second, Julia also questioned if she’d had too much wine but dismissed the thought with a shake of her head. She felt good, carefree, but not drunk like Harry would get on occasion.
Why had she never noticed how handsome Brader was? Julia leaned closer to him and prompted. “So you gave up the ring?”
Brader gave her a considering look before continuing. “I finally worked up enough nerve to ask Mr. Rosen to consider me for a clerk. I was a far cry from the ideal. My clothes were threadbare, my boots had seen better days, and my nose was broken. But he gave me a chance. I learned fast enough to realize that I would never get rich in law. That’s when I learned to gamble.
“Mother and I saved until we had enough to invest in a cargo ship headed for the China Sea. It paid off, but we were lucky. Our next venture failed. Still, I’d developed a taste and wouldn’t back off. The higher the odds against success, the more I wanted a share of the deal.”
Brader sat back in his chair. “Within three years, I wasn’t wearing threadbare clothes and had just entered my biggest risk yet.”
“And?” Julia prompted.
“I was impressed in the navy.”
“Couldn’t you buy your way out?”
“Yes, if I’d had access to my money. Unfortunately, we put out to sea and there was no way for me to contact anyone for two years.”
“Two years!”
Brader nodded. “We hit every port around Africa, then to the west coast of the Americas, and back through the Orient, not to mention battling the Frogs. I thought my family would be fine until my return. Unfortunately, my lunatic investment didn’t pay. In fact, it was a swindle. When authorities came after the investors, Mother was the only one they could find, and she gave them all the money we made to stay out of Ludgate.”
Julia sipped her wine, imagining how horrible it had been for Nan to lose a son and all the money to support her family in a short time. “What happened?”
The set of Brader’s mouth tightened. “I worked my way out of the navy and started again. Only this time I had first-hand knowledge of the ports where the ships did business. Nor had I been idle during my sea years. In port, I visited merchants and traders, establishing contacts.”
“But the price you paid!”
“Yes, the price I paid,” he agreed grimly. He sat silent a moment before leaning forward. “But come, Julia, let’s talk of something else. The past holds too many regrets.”
“I think your eyes are beautiful.”
Brader’s beautiful eyes opened wide with surprise before he grinned.
“What’s so funny?” Julia asked indignantly.
“I’ve never had a woman compliment my eyes.”
Julia smiled, pleased with his answer. “I’m surprised more women haven’t commented. I think you’re devilish handsome.”
“Devilish?”
Julia winked. “Devilish.”
Brader laughed.
“What’s so funny? When someone pays you a compliment, you should say thank you.”
Brader appeared only slightly chastised. “Thank you.”
She cooed with pleasure. “There they are.”
He looked around, truly puzzled. “What are?”
Smiling, she rested her suddenly heavy head in her hand, her elbow on the table, and said, “Your dimples. I think those little half moons on either side of your mouth are your best feature.” She lifted her head and brought her hand down on the table, flipping the fork sitting on her plate into the air. “Brader, you should smile more.”
He watched the fork land on the other side of the room and then turned back to her, smiling.
“That’s much better,” she purred. She wanted him to kiss her. Her toes curled with the thought of it.
Even the idea of letting him make love to her did not sound disgusting anymore. But not here. Fisher could peek in, and Julia didn’t want to be caught kissing in the dining room.
She stood abruptly beside his chair, her leg brushing against his thigh. “Let’s go upstairs,” she whispered.
Brader’s eyes glowed with the golden highlights she could dearly learn to love. He hefted the wine bottle as if to see if there was any left. Finding it empty, he sat it down.
“We don’t need any more to drink.” Julia gave his leg another impatient push with her body.
Brader chuckled. “No, we don’t need more to drink. Wine goes straight to your head, doesn’t it?”
She ignored his question. “Brader, I have paid you several compliments, and you haven’t paid me one. You never pay me compliments, except when you make up things to tell your mother or tell me what other men have said.”
He rose in one easy, fluid movement. “I’ve said you are beautiful.” But Julia wasn’t listening.
He was standing close, very close.
Giving in to an overwhelming desire, Julia leaned against his hard, strong body. She snuggled her nose into the folds of his shirt and jacket, breathing in his clean masculine scent mingled with sandalwood. Tipping her head back, her chin pressing against his broad chest, she whispered, “I like the way you smell.”
His chest started shaking in a manner suspiciously like laughter but Julia didn’t care. With a sigh, she rubbed her cheek against the fine cotton of his shirt, able to hear his heart beating.
“Never did I think to hear compliments from the Elegant Julia.”
Julia yawned. “Brader, don’t talk.” She wrapped her arms around his waist and leaned all her weight against him with a sigh. “Take me upstairs,” she ordered softly.
He obliged her, swinging her easily into his arms.
“I like this,” she gasped, reaching her arms up around his neck to hold on. Cuddling close to him, she didn’t pay attention to their trip through the dining room and up the stairs, content to be held in his arms.
The next thing Julia realized, her head hit the pillow of her bed. Brader leaned over her, her arms still wrapped around his neck. Oh, yes, Julia thought, her body throbbing for his touch, I’m going to let him do that. She pulled him closer and wantonly kissed him full and hard on the lips.
Instead of kissing her back, Brader pulled away, escaping her arms. Confused, Julia propped herself up with her elbows. “Brader?”
“Sh-h-h-h.” His voice came to her from the direction of the door to her room. “Go to sleep.”
Julia sobered slightly. He was leaving! “I don’t want to sleep, Brader. Come back here.” By the light of a candle burning in the hallway, she caught the dark outline of his silhouette in the doorway.
“Good night, Julia.”
Good night? Her anger mounting, Julia sat straight up in the bed. “Why?” She ground the word out. “Is it your mistress? I wager you don’t walk out of her room with a good night! Does she hold more appeal than your own wife?” When he didn’t answer, Julia shouted, “Why are you giving her what should be mine?”
His voice, low and quiet, answered. “I’ve reached a decision, Julia, just this evening. I’ve decided I want something more than what a mistress can provide me.”
“You’ll probably say I can’t give it to you either,” she said petulantly.
“Oh, no, Julia, I’ve decided only you can provide it.”
And on that cryptic answer, he shut the door.
Twelve
Julia woke in stages. Her head felt heavy, her tongue fuzzy. She had the strong urge to polish her teeth and sweeten her breath.
Sitting upright to act on the urge, she discovered her mistake. Her head pounded. The room whirled around her. Groaning, she lay back down on her pillow until the pounding subsided.
Frantically she raked her memory. What had she done last night to make her feel so horrid?
The wine!
Julia groaned and rolled her face into her pillow. She didn’t fee
l sick, but she didn’t feel well. Scanning her mind, she discovered gaps in her memory of her evening with Brader. She remembered sitting at the table and the bit of nonsense over moving her place setting toward her husband.
They’d talked…but she wasn’t completely sure what they discussed.
She sat up again, this time moving slower than she had during her first attempt, and found the room and its furniture stayed in place. Looking around the bedroom, Julia noticed the blue velvet dress lying in a heap on the floor next to her dresser. By the looks of it, whoever removed the dress had not been gentle.
Her cheeks flamed with color.
Had she been intimate with Brader and couldn’t remember? Racking her mind, Julia tried to remember anything she could of the previous evening.
A vague memory pulled at her consciousness: Brader carrying her in his arms up the stairs. Her gaze shot down to the old flannel nightgown she was wearing. Obviously, there were important pieces of her memory missing.
She rang for Betty before gingerly placing her feet on the floor. The room didn’t whirl, but Julia didn’t like her decided headache.
Betty popped into her mistress’s room, with a cheery brightness Julia could easily wish to the devil, and her arms filled with dark red roses. “Oh, lor’, ma’am, I thought you would never ring. Have you ever seen the like?”
The blooms were lush and beautiful. There had to be at least two dozen. “And these are just the ones that survived the trip,” Betty said.
Dumbfounded, Julia accepted the roses from the maid into her arms, repeating, “Trip?”
“Aye, the master sent out riders to London last night with express orders to buy roses for you. Jeremy, one of the footmen, heard him say it. He told me Master Wolf ordered them to go to every hothouse in London, ring the owners out of their beds, and buy every rose they could find for his lady to have first thing in the morning.” Betty crossed to the window and pulled back the heavy drapes, letting in the morning sunshine. “Lor’, it’s a lovely day. It always is after a rain.”
Betty leaned forward, looking out the window with sudden interest.
“There’s Master Wolf now.”
All Things Beautiful Page 15