She looked out over the trees and shrubs lining the edge of Farland Meadows, then pushed from her mind dozens of other promises he’d made and broken, countless days she’d watched for a letter from him, waited for him to visit as he’d promised. Some young ladies would have pined away, drowning in the misery of lies and abandonment. She had taken herself firmly in hand and seized a life she could be proud of.
She ran her hand over the cover of Jackson’s A Mathematical Miscellany. She’d found it in Father’s library months earlier and had been making her way through it. Her governess had refused to include in her education any arithmetic beyond the balancing of household budgets. That visionless lady had restricted Julia’s understanding of the world to the memorization of the most basic of maps. Her reading was not permitted to include anything scientific. She was allowed nothing that could not be labeled an “improving text.” Upon her governess’s departure, Julia had abandoned those restrictions with alacrity and had taken on the task of teaching herself, selecting whichever books in Father’s library caught her eye and studying them. It was an arduous process but one she relished.
She’d expanded her mind, fortified her defenses, set her feet firmly on her own defined path. And she’d done it entirely on her own. Indeed, she’d come to prefer being alone. That would not be an option today.
Father would be disappointed if she was gone too long after Lucas’s arrival. She rose reluctantly from her bench, holding fast to her mathematics book and arithmetic notebook.
A breeze blew as she walked back toward the house. The air had been colder of late. Winter would soon be upon them. She didn’t mind. Winter months were her favorite. Very little socializing was expected. No one batted an eye if she spent days on end in a chair by a fire, reading a book.
She entered the house unnoticed. Before moving to the drawing room, where she knew everyone would be gathered, she slipped into the small sewing room and tucked her books in the drawer of an end table. They would be waiting for her when she returned.
For a moment, she stood in the dim, empty room convincing herself to not simply retreat to her bedchamber and refuse to leave until Lucas did. It would be easier. But she was stronger than she used to be, certainly strong enough to keep her head held high while he was nearby.
No one noted her entrance when she reached the drawing room.
Lucas was in the midst of what appeared to be a riveting tale. “Kes stood at the base of that Mont Aiguille and said, ‘Die up there if you must. I will keep my feet on the terra firma.’”
“And did you climb without him?” Lord Lampton asked, grinning.
“Of course.” A corner of his mouth tugged foppishly. “Antoine de Ville managed to summit it in 1492. Surely an enterprising gentleman of this era could manage a bit of mountaineering on that peak as well. And, you will notice, I didn’t die.”
“Neither did I,” Mr. Barrington said.
“What you didn’t do was live.”
Mr. Barrington shook his head. “That is always the theme with you. Live life. Have adventures. Do anything and everything. You make a person tired, you know.”
Lucas pointed at his friend. “And yet, you’ll be the first to volunteer for the next adventure, mark my words.”
The next adventure. Lucas had not changed. Always going. Always leaving. Always forgetting her.
“Julia.” Father had, it seemed, spotted her standing there. “You’ve returned. Come join us.”
“Do,” Lady Jonquil said. “Lucas is telling us the most diverting stories. This one about his time in Switzerland.”
Here was firm footing. “I’ve read about Switzerland. Some of the tallest mountains in Europe are found there.”
“I know.” Excitement shone in Lucas’s eyes. “I climbed one of them.”
“And he plans to do so again,” Mr. Barrington said. “I suspect every time he reads of a new peak, he’ll rush off to climb it.”
Yes, that fit the Lucas Jonquil she knew.
“Come sit, Julia,” Father insisted.
She joined him on the sofa but kept to the edge of it. The moment she was permitted to take her leave, she would do so.
“You would do well to make yourself comfortable.” Father likely knew her too well to not recognize her posture of impending flight. “Lucas, I would wager, will appreciate your company.”
“Why should he change that particular tune now? It has served him so faithfully these past years.”
Lucas watched her, confusion written on his once-familiar face. He was older now and, not unsurprisingly, even more handsome than he’d been before. He’d always been rather nauseatingly popular with any and all of the young ladies his age, whether they’d grown up in the area or simply been passing through. She’d heard again and again from her brother how in demand Lucas had been in London. Yes, he was handsome, but he was also fickle.
“We have something to tell the both of you,” Lady Lampton said. Her wide smile and dancing eyes told Julia this was no small thing. “In honor of Lucas’s return, we will be hosting a ball at Lampton Park at week’s end. Is that not exciting?”
Exciting was not the word Julia would have chosen. She did not care for social gatherings, and she was far from accomplished at dancing, though that social nicety had been included in her scant formal education.
Across the way, Lucas turned to Mr. Barrington. “I hope you have your dancing slippers handy. It seems we’re to quadrille and allemande until the wee hours.”
“I will leave that in your capable hands,” Mr. Barrington answered.
Lady Lampton looked to him, her expression both eager and concerned. “You will join us, won’t you? We very much wish for you to.”
He dipped his head. “Of course, Lady Lampton.”
Julia leaned a bit closer to her father, lowering her voice. “I am not required to attend, am I?”
Father’s silver eyebrows pulled low. His brows had been silver for as long as she could remember. She had seen him now and then without his hair powdered, and he had only a few strands of gray. “All the neighborhood will be there,” he said. “Some guests will be arriving from out of the county. It will be quite the crush.” He spoke as if that would make her more eager to attend. Surely he knew her better than that.
“You know I dislike balls.”
Father gave her a gentle look. “How can you know if you dislike them when you have refused to attend any?”
It was an argument but not an iron-clad one. “I have also never been devoured by wild dogs, but I am entirely certain I would not enjoy that either.”
She, apparently, did not keep her rebuttal quiet enough. “I am relatively confident my ball will be more pleasant than that,” Lady Lampton responded. Enough amusement lay in the words to appease any concern that Julia had given offense.
“I haven’t the slightest doubt in you as a hostess,” Julia said. “I simply don’t care for social gatherings, regardless of who has planned them.”
Lucas sat next to her. He slipped his hands around hers where they rested on her lap. She pulled them free, but that deterred him only a moment.
“Do come, Julia,” he said. “Everyone in the neighborhood would miss you if you were not there.”
She could almost laugh at that. “Who is left to miss me, Lucas? Robert Finley? He, thankfully, quit noticing my existence years ago. Charles Hampton is away at Cambridge. Emma Carter married last year. Your brothers and sister are dead, as are mine. No one misses me, Lucas, because no one is left.”
Lucas’s golden brow twisted in confusion. Lady Lampton watched her with the look of pity far too many had been lobbing at her over the years.
“I will, of course, attend if it is required of me. But insisting I do so with enthusiasm seems remarkably unfair.”
“We will, of course, extend invitations to all the young people who once lived in the are
a,” Lady Lampton said. “I cannot guarantee all of them will be in a position to attend, but likely some will. You will enjoy seeing them again.”
“I appreciate your thoughtfulness, but we all know that once they have left, few people return.” She let her gaze hover a moment on Lucas before looking once more at her father. “I have full faith you will relay any pertinent details.” She rose. Lucas followed suit. “If you will all excuse me.”
She sidestepped her one-time friend and left with all possible haste.
Chapter Four
“Did I say something to upset her?” Though Lucas asked the question out loud, he didn’t do so in anticipation of an answer.
Lord Farland gave him one, nonetheless. “She has grown headstrong these past years.”
Lucas smiled despite his heavy mind. “Julia has always been headstrong.”
Lord Farland as well as his parents shook their heads. Apparently this stubbornness was new. If something was the matter with Julia, he didn’t mean to stand about doing nothing.
“Pardon me,” he said to the room as he left, following in her wake.
She’d moved swiftly enough to already be out of sight. Which way would she have gone? Outside? A sitting room? Her bedchamber?
Lucas made his best guess and headed in the direction of the family wing. His legs were longer than hers; he caught up to her as she turned down the corridor toward her bedchamber. “Julia, please wait.”
To his relief, she stopped. She turned and watched him approach with an expression one could only accurately describe as annoyed.
“Are you so opposed to the ball as this?” He took her hand. She pulled it immediately away. Just as she had before. When they were younger, he’d always been permitted to hold her hand. And she’d always been happy to see him. He couldn’t account for the change.
“You don’t powder your hair.” Why that observation fell so suddenly from his lips he didn’t know.
“I refuse to adopt a fashion I find ridiculous simply because it is all the rage.” There was the stubborn fire he’d seen in her as a girl.
“I powder my hair,” he pointed out.
“I know,” she said dryly.
He laughed. How could he not? “Mother and Father host the liveliest entertainments. You’ll enjoy yourself at the ball. And I’m certain some of those who’ve moved away will be in attendance.”
“Then you should have a fine time.” So distant.
“Are you angry with me?”
“No.” She spoke quite matter-of-factly.
“You seem to be.”
Her sigh was both frustrated and weary. “You’ve been gone a long time, Lucas. You do not know me as well as you think you do.”
“So come to the ball,” he said. “That will give us the opportunity to get reacquainted.”
“I already said I would go.”
She had, actually. He was more than a little upended. She was behaving so strangely.
“And you’ll dance with me there?” he asked.
She very nearly rolled her eyes; he could tell she almost had. “If torture is required of me, I will endure it.”
He narrowed his gaze, studying her, trying to sort out the mystery she presented. “At what point did dancing with me become torture?”
“I do not enjoy social gatherings.”
He’d managed to tease her out of her worries and heavy moods in the past, rare as they had once been. With a bit of effort, he could do so now. “I will make it my personal goal for that evening to see to it you are pleasantly surprised by the festivities. I’d even be willing to place a wager on it.”
Her head tilted to the side. “What would the forfeit be?”
He pretended to be shocked. “The promise of gambling captured your interest astonishingly quickly.”
Her lips twitched, but she didn’t allow a smile. Oh, she needed a bit of teasing. He would make that his mission during the fortnight he would be at Lampton Park. “As to the forfeit . . .” He made a show of pondering. “If you enjoy the evening, I will give you the present I brought you from the Continent.”
“You brought me something?” She sounded surprised.
“I certainly did.”
Her brow dropped. “But if I don’t enjoy myself, you won’t give it to me?”
He shrugged. “I imagine I still will; I just might make you wait a little longer.”
“Then let us hope your token is not something prone to spoiling. I am unlikely to receive it for years.”
“Do not doubt me, Caroline Julia Cummings. I have been known to work miracles.”
“I stopped believing in miracles a very long time ago.” She walked past him and disappeared inside her bedchamber. The door closed behind her with a click.
This was not his Julia.
***
Lucas’s mother brushed the feather of her quill back and forth over her chin. “I cannot decide between offering a European-inspired supper in honor of your travels or an English-inspired one in honor of your return.”
“Oh, English,” Lucas answered with exaggerated enthusiasm. “But only if your menu includes jellied eels and stargazy pie.”
Mother wrinkled her nose, rendering the little round patch she always wore above her lip a bit askew. “Fish heads looking up at me from the inside of a pie is not my idea of a tempting dish.”
“But it is so very English.” Lucas held back his grin.
“It is so very Cornish,” Mother countered.
“Then Continental cuisine it is.” Lucas sighed.
Mother swatted at him. “You delight in teasing me, son.”
“I delight in seeing you smile,” he said. “And a bit of teasing is the surest way of accomplishing that.”
“Oh, my darling boy.” She reached over and touched his cheek. “You being here once more has affixed a permanent smile to my face.”
“Perhaps you ought to allow a physician to look at that. It might prove a very serious condition.”
Mother laughed. He would always enjoy that sound. Always.
Father stepped into the library. “A delight to hear your laughter, my dear.”
“You say that as if I rarely laugh,” she said.
“More rarely when Lucas is away,” Father said.
She turned up her rouged cheek to Father. He kissed it, then moved to sit in his usual armchair near the fire.
“It is good to have you back, son. Your Grand Tour ended precisely when it ought.”
Lucas hadn’t given a great deal of thought to it. He supposed traveling in the winter would have been more complicated. Journeying home in the late summer had been a boon.
“Returning in time for Mother’s ball. That was very fortuitous timing. Without my influence, she would have served a stargazy pie, and that would have been a disaster.”
Father’s nostrils flared, and his lips curled. “Stargazy pie? We aren’t actually serving that, are we?”
“Of course not,” Mother said.
“By the by,” Lucas said, “I have gifts for the two of you, little offerings from my time on the Continent.”
“Have you?” Mother clicked her tongue. “You’ve been home for two days and haven’t yet presented these tokens of your affection.”
Lucas grinned unrepentantly. “I was saving them in case I found myself in your black books.”
“A bribe?” Father tutted. “You could simply decide to be well-behaved and obedient and forego the need for bribery.”
“Where would be the adventure in that?”
Father smiled. “That’s our Lucas. Always on the hunt for an adventure.”
“Life is meant to be lived.”
“Did you bring a gift for Julia as well?” Mother asked.
“Of course I did.”
Mother bent over her paper
once more, apparently satisfied that he’d shown his old friend sufficient thoughtfulness.
“I have been attempting to sort out the change I see in her,” he said. “The Julia I knew was not so . . . I suppose angry is the closest word I can find, though it doesn’t feel quite right.”
Father rubbed at his chin, thinking. “I would say she is more unreachable than angry. She keeps herself at a distance from everyone.”
“That’s entirely unlike her.” Lucas couldn’t reconcile any of this. “She used to run unencumbered all over the neighborhood, fast friends with anyone willing to accept her.”
“And now she spends most of her time alone,” Mother said. “She seems to prefer isolation.”
“I do hope she attends the ball,” he mused aloud. “The social interaction would do her good, I daresay.”
“Speaking of which,” Mother said, “do you suppose any of the Gents would be able to reach Lampton Park in time for the ball? I imagine you would enjoy having your particular friends here.”
“Only Kes. The others will be scattered a bit too far afield for dropping by on such short notice.” Mother and Father seemed particularly disappointed by that. They had, of course, met each of his six closest friends. They had been a group of seven before Stanley’s death. “Kes and Julia will have to suffice from my circle of friends,” he said.
“Farland will make certain she attends.” Father spoke with complete certainty.
A bit of worry tiptoed over Lucas’s mind. “He’ll not be unkind, I hope.”
Both his parents shook their heads. That was a relief.
“I’ve made a wager with her.” Lucas smiled inwardly.
Amusement danced in Mother’s eyes. “What is this wager?”
“That if she enjoys herself at the ball, despite her current belief in her inevitable misery, I will give her the present I bought for her in Paris.” He leaned back in his chair. “She will receive it either way, of course. I simply hoped she would agree to attend if I attached a challenge to it.”
Forget Me Not (The Gents Book #1) Page 3