Rather than growing more contemplative, Father’s demeanor was turning decidedly frustrated. “She is marrying well and will have everything she could hope for. You are contracting a match that will benefit your family, both current and future. This incessant arguing does not change how I feel, and I promise you it will not sway your mother or Lord Farland. I am sorry that it was foisted upon you without warning. If we’d realized you required being treated with kid gloves on this matter—”
“It is not a matter of me being overly sensitive.” How could Father think as much? “It is a bad match, no matter your insistence otherwise. I am objecting not out of an abundance of sensibility but as a plea for my future and hers. You had options, Father. Please allow me to have some as well.”
At last a glimmer of empathy entered his father’s face. Perhaps Lucas had finally secured the consideration he needed.
“This is the match we have chosen for you, son. I know you don’t see it now, but it will be a good one. You will sort out your difficulties so long as you are willing to try.”
His words held a note of finality that could not be mistaken. Lucas released a lung-emptying breath. “You will not be moved?”
“Reconcile yourself, Lucas. And reassure yourself with the knowledge that your mother and I would not have contracted this match, no matter the benefit to our family, if we did not fully believe that you could be happy in it.”
An easy declaration to make when one was not charged with making it true.
“She will despise me, Father, and I very much fear I will come to resent her as well. I will lose both my chance for a happy marriage and the only childhood friend I have left.”
Father set a hand on his shoulder. “Do not give up so easily. All will be well.”
That was the rub. At the moment, absolutely nothing was well.
Chapter Eight
“She sees no one, goes nowhere, and prefers that.”
Julia had not managed to rid her mind of Lucas’s words nor the disapproving tone with which he’d spoken them.
“She would be a weight.”
“I have options.”
“Because Julia does not have connections or suitors to choose from, I am required to fill that role.”
“I do not gain by being married to her.”
She’d gone to Lampton Park, sneaking in through the back terrace as she’d so often done as a child, intending to plead with Lucas to help her change their parents’ minds. She’d followed his voice to the door of his father’s library but had stopped short before slipping inside.
A weight. No connections. No suitors. Nothing to be gained by marrying her.
Lucas did not wish to marry her but not because he had been caught unawares or wished to marry for love. He didn’t want to marry her because he knew he could do better than someone he considered so very far beneath him.
It was a blow that still left her reeling some four days later. His words added pain to the hurt she felt from her father’s denunciation.
“Selfish child.”
“Grow up.”
“Think of someone other than yourself.”
He thought her a petulant child, one he likely could not wait to rid himself of. But to give her over to a gentleman who considered her a weight and an inferior was a horrible thing for any father to do to his daughter. If only she could make him see that.
She’d attempted many times in the days since the ball to speak with him, hopeful his frustration had cooled enough to allow for the tenderness she had often depended upon. This was her entire future, after all. The rest of her life. He would listen to her now; he simply had to. The wedding—her wedding—was a mere two days away.
Julia donned the silvery-blue dress her father had more than once complimented. She even allowed Jane to powder her hair. This was quite possibly the most important conversation she would ever have with him. She meant to proceed with as high a chance of success as possible.
She stood for long minutes in the corridor outside of Father’s book room, attempting to simultaneously firm her resolve and calm her nerves. “He loves me,” she silently reassured herself. “He loves me enough to listen to me.”
After one more deep breath, she slipped inside. Father stood near a window, enjoying the view it offered. He loved Farland Meadows. Looking out over the grounds was certain to lift his spirits. He was clad in his favorite red banyan, which meant he was comfortable and at his leisure.
Perhaps fate was finally on her side.
“Father?” Her voice was not as steady as she would have preferred.
He looked to her. “Julia.” He waved her over, a hint of a smile playing on his lips. His silver brows, no matter that the hair on his head remained dark, sat in casual ease rather than pulled sharp with disapproval or censure. This was the version of Father she depended upon. His sharp disapproval the night of the ball had been deeply unsettling. She joined him at the window, assuming her most gentle and pleasant smile. “I have not seen you in several days.”
He nodded, a quiet and unrevealing acceptance of her observation. “Lampton and I have been undertaking important matters.”
She hadn’t the least doubt those “important matters” were related to the very thing she meant to discuss. He was moving forward with it all. Caution was more than called for. Setting his back up again before even beginning their discussion was not at all wise.
“I know you enjoy spending time with Lord Lampton,” she said. “I hope your visits have been as pleasant as usual.”
He motioned her toward the nearby chairs. “Lucas joined us last evening. I must say, I am increasingly impressed with that young gentleman. He has a good head on his shoulders.”
Julia’s heart pounded. She lowered herself onto the chair Father indicated she should take. They were tiptoeing very near her reason for entering his book room. She needed to broach the subject but hadn’t fully steeled her resolve.
Father, to both her relief and concern, introduced the matter on his own. “Is this the dress you mean to wear for the wedding? You do look lovely in it.”
“I have given thought to the arrangements you have made with Lord and Lady Lampton.” She spoke as calmly and unhurriedly as she could manage. If he thought she was being too emotional, he might not hear her out. “I was taken so entirely by surprise the night of the ball that we hadn’t an opportunity for a calm and reasoned discussion. I hope we might have one now.”
He smiled softly. “Of course, dear.” He patted her hand before weaving his fingers together and resting his hands against the deep-red, flowered fabric stretched across his belly. This was familiar ground once more. “Lady Lampton expressed some regret over our not speaking more plainly of this to the two of you sooner.”
Their parents had, it seemed, begun to rethink this ill-advised plan. Perhaps Lucas’s objections, painful as they’d been, had made an impression. Hope began to bubble once more. Father’s love and affection had buoyed her through the most painful of experiences. Thank the heavens she had not lost that critical connection.
“When you and Charlotte were born so near in age to Lampton’s youngest boy, our families could not have been happier. At last, our two families were in a position to make the match we’d wanted for generations. Then poor Philip died.”
He had succumbed to a fever at the tender age of seven. Julia had been only a year younger.
“James Jonquil was, we decided, not so very much older,” Father continued. “A match between him and Charlotte—she being the oldest of you girls—would still be a fine thing. And then our sweet little Charlotte died.”
Emotion clogged his voice, and a lump formed in Julia’s throat. Years had passed since Charlotte’s death, and still, the loss stung so acutely. She looked away, not wishing him to see the tears that threatened. She did her utmost to avoid it whenever possible.
; “James was killed not so long after that.” Father sighed, the sound one of soul-deep exhaustion. “We debated for some time whether you and Lucas were too—”
“Ill-suited?” she supplied, looking back at him.
“Too far apart in age. Nine years is no small gap. But your mother and I had eleven years between us. Lord and Lady Lampton claim an eight-year difference. And once two people have reached adulthood, nine years is hardly worth noting.”
Dismissing objections was not the direction she’d hoped this conversation would take.
“There are differences worth noting though,” she said. “He thinks of me as a little sister, which is not at all the emotional foundation on which one ought to build a marriage.”
“That is not his view of you, Julia.” Father actually chuckled.
“He also considers me a poor option for a wife, considering he could have his choice of all the eligible ladies in Society.” Julia gathered her resolve ever more firmly about herself. “I know he objects to this marriage as much as I do.”
Father waved that away. “As I said only a moment ago, Lucas met with his father and I last night. We discussed a great many things, including you.”
They had discussed this. Without her.
“Was there any point, Father, at which any of you considered that I ought to be part of these discussions?” She pressed onward before he had the opportunity to voice any objections. “I know that it is the duty of a father to make a match for his daughter, but I never in all my life suspected you, of all fathers, would do so without giving any thought to my disposition or happiness.”
“I have taken all of that into account,” he firmly insisted.
“You could not have, else the inadvisable nature of these arrangements would have stopped you from proceeding.”
“Julia—”
“Please, listen to me.” She leaned a little closer, holding his gaze. “I know you think I am merely being headstrong, but I assure you this goes deeper than that. You know that I am happiest at home, living a quiet, sedate existence. Lucas has spent nearly all of the last eight years traveling, climbing mountains, leaping from one bold adventure to another. He has spoken again and again since his return of the many journeys he still intends to undertake. How are two people so very different ever to make a life together?”
“Domestic life settles most gentlemen to one extent or another,” he said. “And his adventurous side will, I do not doubt, prove an impetus for you finding yours.”
“If my happiness in this marriage requires that I fundamentally change who I am, then how can you possibly believe it would be a good one?”
His expression hardened a bit. “You would be better for gaining a bit of bravery.”
His words inflicted pain. Yes, she preferred being at home, she preferred quieter pursuits. That did not, however, mean she was cowardly, and neither did that make her inferior, as Lucas had heavily implied. “Am I to gain this bravery by daily facing the daunting weight of being alone and unwanted by a husband whose heart lies everywhere except at home? I assure you that is a learning experience I do not care to have.”
Father stood, assuming an unyielding posture. “This marriage will be good for you, Julia.”
“Because you believe it will change me?” She stood as well.
“I have been too indulgent,” he said. “I’ve not always known how to . . .” He took a chest-raising breath as he paced to the window. There was so seldom tension between them, but here it was again. “I ought to have known better than to believe you had come for a pleasant chat rather than another argument.”
“I will never be happy married to Lucas, Father,” she said. “We are too dissimilar, and we want entirely different things in life.”
His shoulders rose and fell with a sharp breath. “Lucas has agreed to this. He made no objections last evening as we finished drawing up the marriage settlements. This will proceed as planned.” His jaw tightened. Frustration hardened his gaze. “You can arrive to your wedding willingly and with dignity, or you can be brought to the church forcibly. I leave it to you to decide which.” He turned his back, something he had never done before.
An ache, deep and horribly familiar, spread slowly from her heart through every limb, up her neck, down to her toes. Her father was the one person in her life who had never left her, never forsaken her. Until now. And over this. Her pleas for her entire future, for some value to be placed on her happiness, meant nothing.
It didn’t do to believe in people. All she received in return for her faith in them was the echoing silence of empty corridors, days on end with her own loneliness, an unyielding back turned on her grief and pain.
Father’s betrayal was the last brick in her protective wall, the final person to abandon her. And she knew in that moment, looking at him turned away from her, that she was done. The wall was complete now, and she would never let anyone slip around it again.
She walked out of the room without a word or a backward glance and returned to her bedchamber to fetch her sturdier boots. They would look rather absurd with her very formal dress, but she didn’t particularly care. She needed to escape this house.
Her abigail was in her room, along with a footman. A small crate and a traveling trunk sat open on the floor.
“Miss Cummings,” Jane greeted. “How fortunate. I need to know what of your belongings you wish to have taken to your new home after your wedding. Your clothing, of course, will be packed, as well as those items needed for your daily toilette. But what of your trinkets and wall hangings and such? Lord Farland has given permission for you to take anything in this room that you would like.”
How generous.
“The miniature of Charlotte and I,” she said, motioning to it on the end table. “And nothing else.”
“Nothing?” Jane asked.
Even the footman watched Julia in surprise.
“Nothing,” she repeated. She took up her boots, hooded cloak, and thick kid gloves and left. She had pleaded with her father to love her enough to value her happiness. What he had given her was her choice of knickknacks from her bedchamber. No. She wanted none of it.
She paused on the back terrace to switch her slippers for her boots and to pull on the rest of her outwear. Winter had not yet descended, but the air was chilly enough to call for a bit of preparation, especially as she intended to spend a good deal of time out of doors.
Her feet carried her to the Trent. She had many happy memories there. Surely she could find peace on its banks.
The sound of the river running steady and clear allowed her to breathe again for what felt like the first time all day. The symphony of water had formed the backdrop for most of her favorite moments over the years: picnics, games, quiet moments with her family and dearest friends. That these banks had grown empty and, at times, lonely hadn’t entirely negated the calming effect of her beloved river.
She arrived at the flat rock on which she had spent so many hours in her childhood. Her heart was breaking fiercely enough for her tears to cause the Trent to flood its banks. Yet, not a single tear fell. She was too tired to cry, too weary to weep.
The stiff stomacher and moderately wide panniers of her gown did not allow for much comfort when sitting on the ground, but she did so anyway. The rock was cold beneath her, even with her wool cloak offering some insulation.
Julia pulled her hood off, allowing the cool air to tug at her hair and nip at her face. She looked out over the meandering Trent, feeling every bit as broken in spirit as she had when she’d left the house. It seemed there was no longer any tranquility to be had. Even her beloved river was failing her.
“I have found peace in turmoil before,” she whispered. “I can do so again.”
But she didn’t know how this time. She was being forced into a marriage she knew would make her unhappy, and not a soul seemed to care.
&nbs
p; Lucas thought of her as a weight and an undesirable option. He felt he would gain nothing by marrying her. Though he had, apparently, accepted their marriage as inevitable, he was clearly unhappy about it. How long after their wedding would he even remain at home? Adventure and Society and . . . options would pull him away.
She heard footsteps approaching, not from the direction of the house but along the river path that led to Lampton Park. Though there was a chance the arrival was Lord or Lady Lampton or, perhaps, Mr. Barrington, she knew it wasn’t. It was Lucas. She hadn’t a single doubt that it was him.
She didn’t look but kept her gaze on the river. A mere moment later, he sat on the rock, not directly beside her but near enough for her to catch sight of him out of the corner of her eye.
“You’ve powdered your hair,” he said.
“I was attempting to claim enough of my father’s good opinion for him to listen to me.” An autumn leaf floated down the river, making the escape she couldn’t. “That was also my motivation for choosing this gown.” She indicated the fabric showing beneath her long cloak.
“Did that prove a good strategy?”
She pulled her cloak more firmly around herself. “No.”
Lucas scooted a little closer to her. “I suspect I know what it was you were speaking to him about.”
“He told me you were part of the discussion to finalize the details of this marriage.” She heard her voice but felt entirely disconnected from her own words. “I asked why I was not included in any discussions. He threatened to drag me to the chapel.”
“I am sorry, Julia.”
“He used to listen to me when I had worries or concerns. That’s all changed so suddenly.” Her heart was so heavy, so hopeless. “He might have heeded you if you hadn’t conceded so entirely.”
He moved enough to be looking more directly at her. It would be difficult to avoid his gaze now. “We are not going to change our parents’ minds on this matter. Before last night, I tried. Believe me, I did.”
Forget Me Not (The Gents Book #1) Page 6