“Refuse to believe me if you must,” he said on a sigh, “but I am every bit the thieving ragamuffin you refuse to believe I am.”
Mrs. Parks retained her very dignified mien and, with a quick nod, slipped past him and through the door.
“Does she always treat you so coldly?” Julia would do well to understand the housekeeper’s character if she was to have any hope of assuming her role as mistress of the house.
Lucas laughed. “She adores me.”
Julia glanced in the direction Mrs. Parks had gone. “That was adoration?”
“An outpouring of it.”
Lucas motioned her to the door. They walked side by side from the room, on their way, no doubt, to their picnic.
“Was Mr. Barrington terribly scandalized by my appearance in the book room yesterday?” She’d worried over his true reaction to it all, though he’d been everything that was polite and cordial.
“Must not have been,” Lucas said. “He’s setting up the picnic even as we speak and didn’t inquire even once whether you meant to wear shoes.”
Curse her bare feet. “If I’d had the least idea he was visiting . . .”
“He lives relatively nearby. We’ll see him quite often. And he has been invited to the ball at Falstone Castle, so we will see him there as well.”
Her surprise caused her to stumble a bit, though she kept pace with Lucas. “We’ve been invited to a ball?”
“Did I not tell you?”
She shook her head.
“Well, then . . . Julia, we have been invited to a ball. The Duke of Kielder—his home is Falstone Castle—hosts balls only when his wife is in residence, which she often isn’t. Invitations are highly sought after, and we have obtained one. Aren’t we quite the distinguished pair?”
Her pulse pounded in her throat. A ball held in the castle of a duke and duchess with, no doubt, an extensive guest list. “Must we go?”
He eyed her sidelong as they stepped out onto a gravel path that bisected the side lawn. “Invitations to Falstone Castle are both rare and prestigious. Many in Society would pummel one another to obtain one.”
That was hardly the way to convince her. “I admit I have a strong preference for remaining at home. I am not generally one for traveling about. I’ve only ever been to one ball, and that did not go well by any stretch of the imagination.”
“Our ‘betrothal ball’?” Though his voice held a hint of a laugh, there was also a fair bit of disappointment.
She took a calming breath. Lucas liked balls and Society. He had far more experience with them than she did. But she could hardly complain about him wanting to be away from home if being at home meant complete isolation. She could try to be a little more accommodating. “Can you promise me that if we go, no one will unexpectedly announce my betrothal to someone? I understand that can happen at balls.”
Lucas set his arm around her shoulders, squeezing as he tucked her playfully against him. “No one had better do any such thing.”
It was unexpected but so very familiar. They’d assumed this precise posture many times when they were younger, always when he was teasing her. “You would miss me if someone snatched me away?”
“I suspect I would, Julia Jonquil.”
It was the first time someone saying her new name didn’t make her feel physically ill. That was progress.
His arm dropped away, but he bumped her with his shoulder, his smile not fading. This was familiar footing. She felt like a little girl again, spending a lighthearted afternoon with him while he was home from school. He’d been very attentive when he’d returned after Easter term the year Charlotte had died. Julia hadn’t the first idea how she would have endured such heartache without him there for the two short weeks he’d spent in Collingham. He’d saved her in so many ways. And she’d missed him desperately when he’d left again.
Her gaze settled a moment on the distant mountains before returning again to the beauty of this comparatively small expanse of lawn and garden. “Do you have a river?” she asked.
“There’s a picturesque stream not too far from here, but it doesn’t reach Brier Hill.”
“Then where are we to have our picnic?” She posed the question with enough feigned innocence to pull a broader grin from him. “One cannot do the thing properly without a river.”
“Will you settle for a copse of trees and a spectacular view?” His high spirits were improving hers.
“That depends on whether or not you pilfered any ginger biscuits from the kitchen.”
He smiled at her. “Do you think I forgot your love of ginger biscuits?”
A sudden grip of nervousness squeezed her heart. “I’m not certain what you remember. It has been a lot of years since we spent time together.”
He slipped her arm through his. “You enjoy ginger biscuits but not shortbread. You like boiled potatoes. You tolerate fish but don’t prefer it. And there is nothing you love so much as a thick slice of bread with a generous spread of butter.”
Julia leaned a little against his arm, memories and nostalgia working a bit of magic. “Charlotte always thought I was ridiculous to prefer bread to pudding. Heavens, she loved pudding.”
“I miss her,” Lucas said.
Emotion stung the back of Julia’s eyes. “So do I.”
He rubbed her arm. “I hadn’t meant to cause you pain, sweeting.”
“You didn’t.” She took a deep breath, and some of the tension escaped with it. “Besides, one cannot be unhappy at a picnic. I believe there is a law.”
He grinned at her. “Never let it be said that I’m a picnic felon. Should our enjoyment wane, I intend to place the blame on Kes, then he’ll go to prison instead of us.”
“Suppose Mr. Barrington tattles on us?”
“We’ll go into hiding, Julia. Nottingham Forest is, I understand, a fine place for a band of miscreants to hide.”
She shook her head at his ridiculousness, though she was enjoying it. So much of the last weeks had been difficult and tense between them. She needed an escape, however temporary. One cannot be unhappy at a picnic. She didn’t intend to be.
Chapter Sixteen
Lucas watched Julia with an equal measure of enjoyment and relief as they, along with Kes, undertook their picnic.
Julia seemed to enjoy the stories he and Kes told of their travels in Europe. She’d asked questions, inquired after various landmarks. She’d even come very close to smiling. So painfully close.
I miss her smile.
“Were the mountains in Switzerland taller than these?” She motioned to the peaks visible in the surrounding countryside.
“Much taller,” Lucas said.
“And you climbed them?” Her amazement did his confidence a great deal of good. Though he didn’t often admit it, he harbored a great many doubts and uncertainties.
“I didn’t attempt the tallest of them,” he said, “but I climbed several taller than these.”
She turned on her cushion to face him more fully. “Was it dangerous?”
“I don’t take unnecessary risks when I’m mountaineering.”
Julia pulled her knees up and wrapped her arms around them, still looking at him intently. So many Society ladies clung to the extremes of fashion; the wider panniers they wore would make her current adorable posture impossible. “Do any women climb mountains?”
“I’d imagine so, especially in areas of the world with a great many mountains. The siren song of the peaks can be ignored for only so long.”
Her expression was soft. “You really do love it, don’t you?”
He leaned against the tree behind him, his mind filling with memories of climbs and mountaintops. “There is nothing like it in all the world, Julia. It is peaceful and tranquil and . . . and a miraculous bit of heaven.”
A look of something like longing filled h
er eyes as she listened, a different expression than he’d seen before. It drew him in, making it nearly impossible to look away. She appeared in that moment to be truly at peace. How might he keep it from slipping away? How could he keep them in this moment where the future looked almost hopeful?
Kes’s voice broke the momentary spell between them. “We’ve climbed these mountains during previous visits. They weren’t overly difficult; certainly nothing as daunting as the mountains in Switzerland. Could a lady of fortitude but with no previous mountaineering experience manage the thing, do you suppose?”
Brilliant.
Lucas saw a flash of eagerness in Julia’s eyes, though she quickly and expertly tucked it away. His heart broke to see her clamping down on that bit of life. What sent her so constantly into hiding?
“There’s one peak in particular, Julia, that I’ve climbed ever since I moved here. There’s even an old shepherd’s hut that I’ve shored up and improved. We could stop there and rest for a bit if need be.”
She sat up a little taller, letting her knees lower to one side. “Do you really think I could manage it?”
“I absolutely do.” He scooted over to her, kneeling on the blanket in front of her. He took her hands gently in his. “And what’s more, I think you would enjoy it. We could have another picnic, this time at the top of the world.”
She raised an eyebrow, the look a little saucy. “I thought you said the mountains in Switzerland were much taller than these.”
He sighed dramatically and even rolled his eyes. “The comparative top of the world, then. Is that better?”
She shrugged a shoulder. “It’s more honest, at least.”
“Say you’ll go, Julia. I think you’d enjoy yourself.” Lucas held his breath as he watched her silently debating. He glanced at Kes, but no reassurances came from that quarter. If only the mischievous, adventurous Julia of their childhoods hadn’t disappeared so entirely.
“I climbed a few of the smaller European mountains with him,” Kes said. “And several of the Gents have undertaken more ambitious mountaineering with him. It was very interesting seeing the world from so different a vantage point. I would recommend it.”
“Who are ‘the Gents?’” she asked.
Kes looked to Lucas with surprise. “You have not acquainted her with your closest friends?”
He hadn’t, odd though it seemed now that he thought on it. The past years had pulled him so often from home that much of his life and hers had been unavoidably separate. “The Gents are a group of friends. We all met during our school years and remain friends to this day. We’ve traveled together and go about London together when we are in Town. We often visit one another’s homes.”
“And climb mountains,” she added.
“On occasion,” Lucas said.
Julia looked to Kes once more. “He didn’t grow frustrated with you because you were slow or inexperienced with mountaineering?”
Lucas opened his mouth to answer, but Kes shot him a look that told him in no uncertain terms to keep mum.
“Not once,” Kes told Julia. “I’ve seen him frustrated over things before, but not while mountaineering. Something about being on a mountain makes him a completely endurable fellow.”
His words reassured her; she seemed to relax a bit. “I would enjoy seeing this new view of the world . . . and of you.” She addressed the last to Lucas himself.
He didn’t think he’d ever breathed a sigh of such unmitigated relief as he did in that moment. Perhaps this plan to regain their foundation of friendship wasn’t doomed to failure.
Pooka chose that moment to scamper across the blanket and leap onto Lucas’s lap. The dog made a valiant attempt at licking his face but, being quite a small dog, could manage only to reach his neck.
“I know you’re fond of me, boy, but you’re making me look a fool when I’m trying very hard to impress this sophisticated lady here.” He did his best to hold back the enthusiastic pooch but was not overly successful. “Try for a bit of decorum, Pooka.”
From behind the chaos being inflicted on his dignity and appearance, Lucas was treated to a magical sight: Julia’s smile. At last! She’d once been ceaselessly happy, an unending source of joy in all their lives. He needed to discover a means of keeping her smile in place. And if the fates were kind to him, he might even hear her laugh again.
***
Knowing Lucas and Mr. Barrington were hunkered down in the round room, Julia retreated to the book room for her daily mathematics studies. Their picnic the day before had been enjoyable enough that she found herself less heartbroken than usual at being excluded from the room she’d come to secretly love so much. She would have future opportunities for sneaking in.
She scratched out a poorly executed attempt at solving a particularly complicated problem. She’d been trying to master this part of the lesson for nearly a half hour. Perhaps she ought to read the chapter again.
Lucas had taken courses in mathematics at both Eton and Cambridge. He would likely know what she was doing wrong. For just a moment, she was tempted to slip down the corridor and knock on the locked door.
“Not this room.” How often those words in his voice echoed in her mind. They did again just now.
“Things have been better between us,” she said quietly to the empty book room. “I would do best not to press my luck.”
Except he likely understood derivatives. Some of the intricacies were proving elusive. What she wouldn’t have given to have had even a portion of the education gentlemen were afforded. With access to professors and deans and tutors, she wouldn’t struggle so much every time she came upon a new and complicated concept.
“I’ll manage it eventually.” She always did.
Her difficulty likely arose from having spent that morning bent over the household ledgers and receiving reports and information from Mrs. Parks. Julia was well prepared to understand such things—a lady’s education always included household accounts and interactions with servants—but the effort required to maintain the aura of a confident and authoritative lady of the manor when she felt like anything but had proven a little exhausting.
And Mrs. Parks was so confusing. Lucas insisted she was fond of him and that her gruffness ought not to make her seem formidable, but Julia didn’t know how else to view it.
I am afraid of my own housekeeper. How very pathetic it all was.
She looked toward the door at the sound of footsteps. “Mr. Barrington.” She was genuinely pleased to see him. Unlike every other person currently at Brier Hill, he didn’t make her uncomfortable.
“Forgive the interruption, Lady Jonquil.” He offered a quick dip of his head. “I have come in search of a book.”
“A particular book?” She glanced at the shelves. “I am not yet familiar enough with the book room to locate anything specific.”
He shook his head. “Any book will suffice. Our friend Lucas has received a couple of letters and is busy reading, an activity that will, no doubt, be soon followed by writing responses. I’m looking for something to pass the time.”
She set her pencil down and pushed her book a little bit away on the desk. “Lucas seems to receive a lot of letters.”
Mr. Barrington crossed to the bookshelves, speaking to her as he searched. “His mother is a very faithful correspondent. However, I believe the bulk of his letters come from the Gents.”
“Then why did you not receive letters as well? You are one of them, are you not?”
“I am.” He looked over at her. “I suspect I will return to Livingsley Hall and be required to climb a mountain of letters. How fortunate that Lucas has taught me the finer points of mountaineering.”
“Then you haven’t been home yet?” That surprised her.
“I haven’t.” Mr. Barrington pulled a book off a shelf and began flipping through it.
“Even after an
entire year in Europe, you still want to spend time with Lucas?”
He smiled briefly and sat at the table across from her. “He’s one of my closest friends. But I didn’t delay my return home because I’m fond of him.”
“Why, then?”
He set his book down and met her eyes. “Because I’m worried about him.”
She didn’t really need an explanation. “This marriage.”
Mr. Barrington nodded. “He makes every effort to seem perfectly happy and optimistic in this unexpected circumstance, but I spent a year with the gentleman. I know him too well to be fooled.”
Julia sighed. “He grew frustrated with me not long after we arrived at Brier Hill because I admitted I wasn’t happy. I don’t see how hiding the truth of our situation is going to make it any better, but he seems determined to do just that.”
“Lucas always was the court jester in our group of friends,” Mr. Barrington said. “Quick with a grin and joke, ceaselessly jovial, appearing entirely sure of himself, even arrogant at times, though I doubt he realizes he gives that impression. The mask cracked a few times on the Continent. It very nearly did in Nottinghamshire as well. Which is why I’m here.”
“Because he is completely miserable?”
Mr. Barrington shook his head. “His façade doesn’t slip when he’s unhappy. It slips when he’s afraid.”
“Afraid?” That didn’t seem likely. “Why would he be afraid of this marriage?”
“Not the marriage. You.”
That declaration hit her like a gust of icy wind. “Me? He is nearly a foot taller than I am and likely has four stone on me. He’s older, with more experience of the world. As a man, he has absolute legal control of me—where I live, what I do. Of the two of us, he is not the one with the most reason to worry.”
“Precisely,” Mr. Barrington said. “That contradiction is why I am worried about him.”
The nervous pounding in her heart all but forced words from her that she’d never intended to speak out loud, arguments she’d first heard Lucas make but which were more and more often filling her thoughts in her own voice. “Marrying me has ruined his life. I’ve tried to ignore that, but I know it’s true. He is a future earl. The Lampton title is an old and respected one. The Jonquil family coffers are deep and stable. He is personable and social, handsome and amiable. He could, quite literally, have had his pick of any number of important and preferable ladies in Society. My options were so limited they were very nearly nonexistent. This marriage was a comedown for him. Perhaps what you are interpreting as fear is actually resentment.”
Forget Me Not (The Gents Book #1) Page 12